


The Gentleman and the Servant

by freckleslikeconstellations



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Trauma, F/M, Fluff, Victorian Era fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-11
Updated: 2016-01-11
Packaged: 2018-05-13 05:15:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 34,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5696386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/freckleslikeconstellations/pseuds/freckleslikeconstellations
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Can there ever be anything more between a gentleman and a servant?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Gentleman and the Servant

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, a very happy new year to you all, thanks must go to you all as usual for your support. 
> 
> Enjoy. :)

_December 5th, 1895._

 

Sleep diminishes from you but you don’t open your eyes. You should you know. For today might be a sort of different day for you from the usual, but as ever there’s really no time to be lingering. Yet your face-the only part of you, which is sticking out of the thin blanket that covers your bed-is freezing because of the cold room, and you have no desire for the rest of your body to become so. It doesn't help either that your room is an attic one. But your mind goes from all the reasons that you shouldn't get up to your usual ones for why you _should_ just as quickly-from the fact that you’re paid well to the fact that you get treated with a lot of decency on top of that. Whilst usually though that would serve to be enough to get you up, today you can’t help but think that it’s the last time that you’ll ever have such reasons. Can’t help but think that you should be happy to be leaving this place, but you’re not, and that’s the true reason you know that you’re reluctant to begin your day. A sigh escapes you now and you roll onto your back. As you do you come to think about how, in the great scheme of things, it hasn't been very long since you first came here. Not long at all in fact…and as you begin to reminisce you can’t know that only a short way away, in his own bedroom, Mr. Holmes is doing the same… 

 

 _November 30th, 1894._

 

You’re in the middle of dusting and polishing the long mahogany dining table in the Holmes’s country manor when it happens, when Mrs. Holmes comes sweeping in, followed by a girl who you guess to be around nineteen. She has her long blond hair swept up and looks to be another servant if her dress is anything to go by, yet you've never seen her before. In truth though you don’t take notice of the girl beyond that, for Mrs. Holmes pulls you off your duties just a moment later and tells you that you should go and pack your things at once. You’re shocked by this, and at first you think that you’re being sacked because Mrs. Holmes tells the girl who’d escorted her to carry on with polishing the table in your place, and your mind reels with hurt as you wonder what you could have done to deserve such a thing. But then Mrs. Holmes sweeps you aside to the corner of the well-furnished and beautiful room and informs you that her eldest son Mycroft-this is the first and last time you've thought of him by that name, as forever since he’s always been Mr. Holmes to you-was doing well enough to employ a servant of his own. You don’t make the connection between this and your own situation at first. But then Mrs. Holmes tells you that you’re to be that servant, and though of course you feel an instant gratitude towards the fact that she’s not sacking you, this is clouded over a moment later by the amount of change that seems to be in front of you. For you've been working underneath Mr. and Mrs. Holmes for two years, and the thought of leaving the house and the stable routine that you've built up, not to mention your good working relationship with all the other servants and your knowledge of your employers for the smog and soot of London, does not sit well with you. 

 

Indeed Mrs. Holmes must sense something of this, for she says, “Well, chop, chop dear, don’t dawdle,” before she raises her hands, as if by doing so she can lift you right up out of your glum spirits. 

 

Not wanting to upset her you respond, “Yes Ma’am,” promptly, like you've been taught to do, before you add for good measure, “Thank you Ma’am.” Then you leave her wearing a slight incredulous expression, as if she can’t believe that you've responded so drably to the opportunity that she’s presented you with, before you go to your room and pack. 

 

Sherlock-the youngest Holmes brother and the only Holmes who it feels wrong to call by their surname-comes in when you’re doing so. 

 

He takes one look at the meagre suitcase that you’re steadily filling up with your things, and the way that you've scattered a bunch of your muted coloured clothes in a neat fashion upon your bed, before he drawls out, “I think she’s punishing you.”

 

You smile a bit at that, but by the time you straighten up and turn around to him to take in his unruly mop of dark hair and those startling blue eyes, you've forced an even expression onto your face. Then you ask, “Punish me? Now why would you say that?” but even so the level expression upon your face is fast slipping as you come to the end of your words.

 

Sherlock, seeing such a thing, smiles for a moment. Then he shifts a little from where he’s leaning against the door with his ankles crossed and says, “Because of all the times you've _‘accidentally’_ walked in when she’s been telling me off.”

 

You bat at him with the plain grey top that’s still in your hand as you hear the emphasis he puts on the word, _‘accidentally.’_ Then you tell him, “It _was_ an accident!” 

 

“ _All_ of them?"

 

“Well, perhaps I did deliberately make my way to a room where I heard raised voices coming from every now and again,” you confess, before you quickly point your top at him warningly when he gets a triumphant look about him. Then you state, “But it’s hardly my fault if the rooms needed cleaning now is it?” 

 

Sherlock smiles some more. Then he straightens his position so that he’s not leaning against the wall any more, before he thrusts his hands into his pockets as he tells you, “Well thank you, and thank you for listening to me all the times that I”-

 

“All the times that I've had to listen to you go through every mischievous joke and experiment that you want to do,” you interrupt, knowing that he’s beginning to feel awkward, and he grins at you gratefully for a moment. 

 

Then, just as you’re about to turn back to the bed, he tells you, “I think she’s sending you away because of me actually,” and as you look back at him and raise your eyebrows as if to say, _‘Oh?’_ he goes on, “She keeps accusing me of being too over familiar with the servants,” and he pulls a bit of a face at that. Usually him pulling such a face at you would get you smiling, but his words have reminded you about your place in the household so you stiffen automatically. Sherlock, seeing such a thing, tries to brush it all off with a wave of his hand, before he states fervently, “That’s not applicable here though, I mean you’re practically like family. I know you more than I know some of my family in fact.”

 

But as well as of course feeling pleased and touched by his words you can’t help but feel a little shy and embarrassed about them too. So you duck your head and then your hands fiddle with your top as you state, “That’s very kind of you, but you know as well as I do that I'm not actually part of your family.”

 

Sherlock studies you for a moment. Then he goes back to leaning against the side of the wall again as he states, “It’s you I feel sorry for though, having to live with my boring brother, I mean that’s even _worse_ than me being stuck here with no one to talk to.”

 

 _“Sherlock!”_ you say as you cast a bit of an appraising look to the door, but Sherlock just grins. “I'm sure he’s not _that_ bad,” you hiss reproachfully. 

 

“He is,” Sherlock informs you wearily, before something in his face changes again as he muses, “I keep forgetting that you've never met him. I wish that _I’d_ never met him.” 

 

“That’s an awful thing to say about your brother,” you tell him promptly. 

 

Sherlock just smiles at you however, and his face grows a little weary once more as he does so, before he looks around. Then he muses, “I suppose that I better go, before Mummy comes and accuses me of being too over-familiar again.”

 

“Yes I suppose you better had in that case,” you tell him with a small smile. 

 

As his glimmering blue eyes come to fix on you again he wears more of an intent look. Then he says, “If I don’t get another chance”- before he breaks off awkwardly.

 

“I know,” you tell him softly, and he nods a little falteringly at you.

 

Then you let out a little breath, before as you decide to break with what’s proper altogether, you stride across, break the gap between you and hug him. 

 

He stiffens at once as you do so; and his thin, lanky frame goes completely rigid, before it slowly relaxes once more. 

 

Then as he pats the top of your head a little warily for a moment, before his hand stills there, you breathe out, “I'm going to miss you Sherlock, I really am,” against his chest. 

 

You pull back from him in the next moment, and the last thing that you see before he leaves your room is his Adam’s apple bobbing and a brief glint of moisture in his eyes. 

 

You don’t see him, before you leave again. 

 

* 

 

You leave for London the first thing the following morning, and as the carriage rattles along the roads and the scenes from the window become distinctly less country like, your hands fidget as your mind wonders once more about what your new employer will be like. For although you know that Sherlock was probably partly correct when he’d labelled him as boring, you’re wary about taking Sherlock’s words completely at face value. Especially when you know that he can be a stubborn-minded little thing, and not always correct despite his cleverness when his mind’s made up about something or someone. So your mind tries to dig up any other information that might cast more of a light on things. There’s your own evidence of course, for although Sherlock was quite right in saying the previous day that you’d never met Mr. Holmes, you _had_ caught a glimpse of him once. Mind you that had just been of the back of him, so aside from knowing that he’s tall you don’t have any idea of what he looks like. You don’t even know what his hair colour is since he’d been wearing a top hat at the time and the collar of his frock coat had been turned up. So perhaps that’s not the most useful thing. But you _had_ heard Mrs. Holmes talking about him proudly to her friends one afternoon as you’d served them all tea, and the impression that you’d got was of her eldest son being something well to do in the city, a civil servant of sorts. So you know from that, that he must be an ambitious sort of man, which is a little more to go on at least. But then, with that conclusion drawn for now, you start to worry about the increased workload that you’ll have. For being Mr. Holmes’s only servant means that you’ll be busy from sunrise to sunset what with all the chores that you’ll have to do, and you can’t help but feel worried about how you’ll manage. As ever though it’s too late to change anything, and even if it weren't you wouldn't dare protest or you know that all would be waiting for you would be unemployment and the workhouse. 

 

As you finally arrive in London and peer a little apprehensively out through the window at what you can see of it through the smog, your hands fidget even more terribly with the fabric of the plain grey dress that you’re wearing. Whilst your throat, which is already dry, only becomes more so when the carriage turns off to the right at the end of an ordinary street, before it goes through a tall, black gate down a small gravel lined driveway and you can see the house that will become your home in front of you. It’s not as large as the Holmes manor had been, more like a large town-house, but it’s intimidating in its own way. And as the carriage does a half-circle around the small fountain that lies in the driveway’s centre, before it comes to a stop, and you peer up at the brown-bricked house, you can’t help but feel even more apprehensive. But even though your mind is mostly blank from your nerves one realization does come to it, and that’s that Mr. Holmes must be even more well to do than you’d previously thought if he can afford to not only live in but maintain a place like this all by himself. 

 

Then you swallow and let out one little breath, the last fresh one that you've stored up from all your country living, before you push the door of the carriage open bravely. Once you've slipped out of it you thank the driver briefly, before you go across to knock on the black door with a slightly trembling hand. Despite your nerves though you feel determined to try and be organized about everything, for that way you’ll be in control. So, whilst you give a chance for Mr. Holmes to come and greet you, you turn back to the carriage, and, with the driver’s assistance, begin to bring your things up to the steps by the door. It’s ironic really that aside from one suitcase and a couple of hat boxes none of the other things are yours, you think. For Mrs. Holmes had insisted on you taking some things down with you for her son, and they've all been packed together in two small trunks. But, even with them, it doesn't take long, before everything’s at the door. Yet there still hasn't been a response. So, feeling sure that you just hadn't knocked loud enough and that your new employer simply hadn't heard you, you begin to raise your hand so that you can knock once more. But before you can the door swings back to reveal none other than Mr. Mycroft Holmes himself. 

 

Your new employer looks distinctly puzzled upon seeing your hand half-raised toward him, so you lower it straight away. 

 

Then, for a moment, as your hands fidget against your dress once more, you just find yourself taking him in. He seems to be taller than you’d even thought he is, and you have to tilt your head up a little to look at him properly. His hair is of an auburn colour. It’s short and there are no bushy sideburns or facial hair. Whilst his eyes are blue like his brother’s, but though they’re not as sharp as that of Sherlock’s, there’s something piercing about them that take your breath away all the same. His nose meanwhile is what your mother would call a ‘parish pick-axe,’ because of its prominent size, whilst you notice that his lips are as thin as the bow that brings your dress together. His dress meanwhile is the epitome of the Victorian gentleman, what with his grey three-piece suit underneath his black topcoat, his velvet collar, black gloves and white neck tie. You've just come to conclude that all together he’s very handsome and would no doubt be a fine catch for whatever woman ends up marrying him when it strikes you that he’s probably waiting for you to speak and introduce yourself. 

 

“Forgive me Sir,” you tell him at once, feeling flustered now, and your hand half-makes its way up to your tied back h/c hair, before you become aware of what it’s doing and force it back down again. “I'm F/N L/N, your mother sent me.”

 

His face clears a little at this. “Ah, the _servant_ ,” he says, and it’s not exactly unkind, more as if he’s reminding himself about your presence in his busy schedule, but being reminded of your place already has you swallowing. 

 

Yet you bite your feelings back down, as you've been taught to do, before you say promptly, “Yes Sir.”

 

But even though you've responded Mr. Holmes just looks at you a moment more. Then he lets out a bit of a weary sort of sigh, which makes you feel very uninvited, before he blurts out, “I've got to go out, so you better start bringing all your things in,” as if he thinks that you’re already causing him more hassle than you’re worth. 

 

He starts to turn away then, and you feel surprised that he’s planning on leaving you to your own devices so soon, which is perhaps why you get, “They’re not all mine Sir,” without taking as much care of your words as you would usually. Yet when Mr. Holmes turns back to you and you see the questioning look that’s on his face, you say, “Sorry Sir, I don’t mean to be rude. I just meant that a couple of them are filled with things that your mother wanted to send you”- but you break off then for there’s a sudden quirk to his lips and it throws you off your words. 

 

“In that case I better help you take them inside,” Mr. Holmes says, and there’s something almost playfully challenging to his expression as he does so. 

 

Yet, still aware of your earlier slip up and not wanting to make any more of a poor impression than you’re already sure that you have, you remain cautious in your response, just saying a rather flustered, “Oh, I'm sure I’ll manage Sir, if you just want to tell me where to put them.”

 

But Mr. Holmes just quirks a curious eyebrow up at you, before he bends down to pick up two of the cases-one being yours and one being one of the ones that Mrs. Holmes had sent with you-then he promptly turns to go further inside. 

 

So, feeling surprised and a little nervous, you hurriedly pick up the rest of them as best as you can and follow after him. 

 

The entrance hall of the house, with its black and white chequered floor, is a slightly larger one than you’d envisaged from looking at the front of the house, and it’s furnished in dark greens and dark woods and various portraits like you’ll soon discover much of the house is, whilst a staircase sits in the middle, covered in a green carpet. 

 

Once you get further inside Mr. Holmes sets down his load so you make to carefully do the same, before you turn a little so that you can close the door behind you. 

 

By the time you turn back it is to see that Mr. Holmes is fixing his gaze on you again so you ask him, “Is there anywhere in particular that you want me to put the items from your mother Sir until you can look at them? What with you going out I mean?” 

 

For a moment he just looks at you again. “No, I’ll just put them in the living room for now,” he says, as he makes to pick up his load once more. 

 

“One of them is mine actually Sir,” you tell him quickly, as you take half-a-step forwards. 

 

 _“Ah,”_ he says, faltering now, and he uncertainly makes to put down both cases again. 

 

Your hand darts forward instinctively at the same time that his draws back, and they catch against each other briefly, but even with your hands being gloved you’re aware of the breach of etiquette that you've just made. “Sorry Sir, forgive me Sir,” you tell him at once. 

 

“Not to worry,” he tells you lightly, before he draws back from you completely. 

 

You take your case with a blush on your face. 

 

He promptly clears his throat and tells you, “Your room’s just upstairs,” before he turns and takes the stairs with some vigorous movements that make your eyes notice the length of his legs for the first time.

 

You however, weighed down by your case and your hat boxes, do so more slowly, and Mr. Holmes is already waiting with the door of the attic room open for you by the time you reach him. 

 

“Sorry Sir,” you murmur again, albeit a little breathlessly this time, before at his nod you make your way steadily past him and into the room, which will become yours-though you don’t know it then-for the next year. 

 

The first thing that you notice about it is that it’s very cold. 

 

“You might want to light a fire for yourself later,” Mr. Holmes tells you when he sees you shiver. 

 

You nod, before you push out a, “Yes Sir,” in between your now chattering teeth. 

 

Aside from the cold though you have to admit that the room’s really quite a pleasant one. For though it’s small of course, and basic, with only a bed and the most essential of furniture like a wooden wardrobe, chest of drawers and a bedside cabinet, you can imagine that in the spring, as the first light of day shines through the small window, it will feel quite homely. 

 

You don’t get to think any more about it though, for Mr. Holmes informs you, “I have to go out now, but I've left a list of requirements that I’ll expect you to carry out on a day-to-day basis downstairs on the kitchen table.” 

 

Once more he’s surprised you with his words, but still, because of your position, you force yourself to recover quickly and say, “Very well Sir,” and Mr. Holmes gives you one last curt and slightly awkward nod, before he hurriedly turns and leaves you. 

 

It’s as you begin to unpack some of your things, and as you’re thinking about all that’s just transpired, that you can’t help but think that he’s acted rather peculiarly in giving you a list. For even though he’s obviously a busy man you’re sure that it wouldn't have taken him long to discuss such a thing with you. Whilst later, when you read the list, you find it even more peculiar. For its been written in such a strict business-like manner, and you can’t help but get the impression that Mr. Holmes, as well as possibly being a boring man like Sherlock had suggested, is also a stern one. But still, even after meeting him briefly and reading his instructions and taking in his neat script, you feel that Mr. Holmes is still just as mysterious, if not even more so, as he’s always been to you. Though you know that there is a lot to do, for even though your employer had not stated when he’d be back, you feel sure because of the list that he’ll be expecting dinner, you can’t help but want to get more familiar with the house and hope that it will in turn make you become more familiar with Mr. Holmes. 

 

So, leaving the list where you’d found it for now, you step quietly out of the kitchen, which is at the back of the house, before you make your way slowly through the rest of it. You try at every door and go in when they permit you, and curiously there’s only one that doesn't, which is a door that you gain access to via the study. You even think that because every where else has been so open to you that it might just be a little stiff, so you tug at the knob of it a couple of times. Yet still it’s unyielding to you, so you have to conclude that it really _is_ supposed to be locked after all. But even from the rest of the house and from the fine furniture and comfort that everything suggests, though you get the picture that Mr. Holmes has an appreciation for the more costly things in life, you learn very little about him. For the house, though homely, is vastly impersonal. You can’t help but wish in fact that you had Sherlock’s eyes and knowledge, for you know from some of the things that he used to say that he’s a dab hand at being able to tell things about people, so you feel sure that if you did you’d be able to tell several things about Mr. Holmes and already have a firm handle on what type of man he is. Yet thinking about Sherlock’s ability in turn has you suddenly wondering if Mr. Holmes has the same gifts, for he is Sherlock’s brother after all, and as it suddenly occurs to you that he might be able to tell that you've been snooping around, you hurry back to the kitchen at once. It’s just as well that you do so though, for it’s more than time that you started to get the dinner ready.

 

*

 

Mycroft Holmes, on his way to the Diogenes Club, thinks that if the way that you’d seemed like such an apologetic little thing, along with what he’d gleamed just by looking at you and from what his mother had told him is anything to go by, then your time serving for him will go most predictably. For by the fact that you’re a diligent worker, the youngest of four, and from what had been quite a well to do family, before your parents had fallen on hard times just as you’d reached the age of sixteen, causing you to go from balls to servitude in order to help support them, he’s been able to tell that although you’ll no doubt be a hard worker during the day, during the night you’ll be more of a nuisance to him. He forms such an opinion because, what with him and you being the only two in the house and you being stricken by the syndrome of being the youngest child, which is, if Sherlock is anything to go by, a colossal need for attention, than it’s an easy one to come to. He sighs and frowns because of it however, for despite the ease with which he’d come to it he hadn't even wanted a servant in the first place. It had been Mummy’s idea, and he hates the thought of having his peaceful, lovely evenings of solitude interrupted. But he supposes that if he wants the house being kept in a more orderly fashion, and if he wants to keep Mummy happy, then it is just something that he’ll have to put up with. 

 

*

 

Mycroft doesn't think of you again until he’s back in the carriage on his way home, and when his stomach begins to rumble he can’t help but feel annoyed with himself for not telling you that he’d be back for dinner and that he’d expect you to have it ready for him. He can’t imagine that you would have done anything more than unpack and snoop around the house on the pretence of getting to know where everything is. He feels annoyed at the thought of you rooting about his things. But too he knows that if he really wants you to do your job properly he’ll just have to put up with such a thing. Still he can’t help but feel irritated at the fact that his once private home will be so no more. 

 

Indeed he’s still fuming about your intrusion when the carriage pulls up outside the house, and after dismissing the driver for the night he can’t help but tense up as he steps inside, feeling moody at the prospect of having to make his own meal for another night. But then he stops in the entrance hall and surprise hits him. For he can smell food, and not only that but whatever it is smells delicious. So he simply lifts his head up and breathes it in for a moment. 

 

Then he lowers it once more as you come hurrying out of the kitchen, before he listens as you say, “Ah, Mr. Holmes, dinner will be ready in five minutes Sir,” and he watches as your face takes on a mixture of both relief that he’s home and worry at not knowing how he’ll react to your words.

 

But, even though he’s grateful at you having made dinner he doesn't want to look _too_ pleased with you, for he’s worried that you’ll only take advantage of the situation. So he settles on turning his lips into a frown for a moment, before he tells you coolly, “I don’t believe that I requested you to make dinner tonight?” 

 

He can tell by your face that he’s shocked you, but when you tell him, “I'm sorry Sir, but one of the requirements on the list you gave me said that an evening meal would be necessary,” he can’t help but feel both slightly impressed and amused in spite of himself. 

 

Yet even so he can’t help but reply, “If you’d studied the list further, rather than deciding to make me dinner and snoop around the house like you've no doubt been doing”- and he feels oddly satisfied now when he sees how a flush rises on your cheeks and gives away that, that’s exactly what you've been doing even more-“Then you would have also read that sometimes, because of my work, things can change with regards to my evening meal, and in any case I wasn't expecting you to start work until tomorrow. So I'm afraid that, with that being said, I cannot pay you for any work that you've conducted during the short time that you've been here today.” 

 

He doesn't feel surprised when you duck your head down momentarily, but he _does_ feel so when you lift it up and say, “That’s fine about you not paying me Sir. I'm sorry if I did something wrong by making you your dinner, as far as I was aware I was only doing what was expected of me. As for going around your house Sir I was only doing so to”-

 

“So that you’d get to know where everything is,” Mycroft interrupts you with a knowing glint in his eye, and once more he feels oddly satisfied when again you flush, before you frown at him. Too satisfied to stop himself from saying, “I know every trick in the book Miss L/N, and you should be aware that if I find that you've taken or upset something valuable, whilst looking around, then you won’t be working for either me or my family again.”

 

You swallow rapidly twice now, before you nod, “Yes Sir.” 

 

Mycroft draws himself up and studies you for a moment, before he nods, “Very well.” Then he turns away from you and begins to take his topcoat off. 

 

“Let me take that Sir,” you say, so he passes it to you and you hang it up on the coat stand that’s off to one corner in the entrance hall. 

 

Mycroft watches as you do so, and then he goes to wash his hands and face, before dinner. 

 

*

 

Dinner is an oddly pleasant affair, and as Mycroft eats it, his shoulders grow looser and he starts to feel more relaxed. For the meal you've cooked-a vegetable soup-is not only a lot better than it sounds with its lack of meat, but it’s quite frankly delicious and almost on a par with his own mother’s cooking. 

 

As he eats it you give him space, but every now and again you dart nervously forwards to ask him if it’s to his taste, and when ever you do so Mycroft never does nothing more than nod, which makes you shrink back into the shadows again. 

 

Yet once he’s finished, as he stands up, feeling warmer and far happier than he’d done when he’d first come home hungry and a little damp, he can’t help but feel that he should give you a bit of encouragement at the very least. “Not bad,” he comments as he gives you a brief glance, before he makes to move past you. 

 

“Thank you Sir,” you manage to get out quickly, before he leaves the room. 

 

*

 

It’s about half-an-hour later, when, as he sits in the living room in a wing-back chair, Mycroft starts to feel uncomfortable again. For he can hear you shuffling about the house as you finish off what needs to be done, and he can’t help but think that it’s only a matter of time, before he starts to learn how much of a nuisance you’ll be to him in the evenings. 

 

Yet it comes even more as a surprise to him, when, as time continues to pass, the house grows silent and he doesn't hear hide nor hair from you. 

 

So, when he can’t bear listening to the ticking of the clock and sitting there wondering what the devil’s going on any longer, he slides off the edge of the chair into a standing position with a bit of a frown on his face, before he heads upstairs. 

 

Yet even when he comes to a stop just outside what is now your bedroom door he can’t hear anything, not even when he presses his ear to it. So he returns downstairs a moment later with an equal amount of confusion as to what he started with. 

 

As he thinks upon the matter some more though, he becomes convinced that the only reason you’re not making a nuisance of yourself, and for why you've apparently gone to bed early tonight, is that you feel tired after the travelling, and that tomorrow and the next few days will prove to be the real test.

 

Over the next few days though he remains just as puzzled, for though you seem to work just as hard as he predicted you would during the day, during the evenings you continue to lock yourself away in your bedroom. He can’t fathom why you’re doing so or why you’re not living up to his predictions and being the nuisance that he expected you to be. He even starts to wonder if he should phone Mummy-a telephone was another thing that Mummy insisted he have in the house-and ask her if there’s anything that she forgot to tell him about you that would account for your strange behaviour, and he goes back and forth on the idea for a couple of days because he doesn't want to look like he’s incapable of dealing with you, before he finally relents and calls home during another evening when you’re locked away in your room. 

 

Unfortunately for him however it’s not Mummy who answers his call but Sherlock. “Ah, Sherlock, I hope you’re well, might I be able to speak to Mummy?” Mycroft asks a little abruptly, but he knows the route that the call will go down if he doesn't. 

 

 _“Mycroft,”_ Sherlock says jovially, and much to Mycroft’s chagrin he sounds amused. “Isn't it odd how usually it’s Mummy who phones you, but after a few days of getting a servant you make a rare phone call home? What is it Mycroft? Having a little problem dealing with the opposite sex?” Sherlock jests, and Mycroft frowns, before feeling distinctly ruffled he draws himself up even though his brother can’t see him. 

 

“Can I talk to Mummy please?” he asks a little stiffly. 

 

“Ah, so you _are_ having problems,” Sherlock states, before he quips, “How very interesting.” Mycroft huffs down the line but that only encourages his brother to go on, “What seems to be the matter?” 

 

“It’s none of your business,” Mycroft tells him stoically, before he huffs, “Now if you could please get Mummy then I’d be very”-

 

“Could it be that you’re being your usual self towards her?”- 

 

“Of _course_ I'm being my usual self, she’s my servant,” Mycroft splutters, before at the prominent pause that comes down the line he shifts his position slightly and asks, “What are you on about Sherlock? Why shouldn't I be my usual self? What do you know of her?” and he can’t help but feel a little alarmed now. 

 

 _“Patience,_ brother dear,” Sherlock teases down the line, and once more Mycroft feels irritated when he can tell how much Sherlock’s enjoying the sudden power that he’s got over him. But then, and when he can no doubt tell that Mycroft’s beginning to lose his patience with him, Sherlock goes on, “I don’t know much more about her than you do. But I know that having come from a house that’s full of people to one where there’s just you she’d probably appreciate it if you could at least try to make a bit more of an effort with her”-

 

 _“I”-_ Mycroft begins, before he breaks off as the cogs in his head whir. He’d been about to say that he _had_ been making an effort, for he’d complimented you on your cooking a couple of times and acknowledged you with a nod whenever you passed each other around the house. But then it had occurred to him that perhaps although those things _had_ seemed like an effort to him at the time, they weren't much of one, not considering what his brother had just said. 

 

Once his thoughts on the matter have concluded he tries to explain, “She stays in her room all evening after everything’s done”-

 

“Is it any wonder when you consider the welcome that you've probably given her?” Sherlock asks, and Mycroft swallows now, for he gets the feeling that though he hates to admit it Sherlock’s probably right. 

 

He hates asking his brother for advice just as much, but he’s quite at a loss, even with what he’s just been told, to know what to do himself. “What should I do about it?” he questions. 

 

“Invite her downstairs, try and talk to her a bit more”- Sherlock begins without hesitation.

 

“She’s my”-

 

 _“Yes,”_ Sherlock interrupts him, “She’s your servant, but she’s _also_ a human being, and what with the amount of things that she’s probably doing for you, you could probably stand to show her a bit more gratitude.”

 

Mycroft swallows at that, before, feeling suitably chastised, he ends the call a moment later.

 

Then, still feeling a little uncertain, but knowing in spite of himself that his brother’s right he makes his way over to the stairs and begins to climb them. 

 

*

 

A week. You've been here a week, and my God you’re missing everyone at Holmes manor, even Mr. and Mrs. Holmes. For the behaviour of _this_ Mr. Holmes has begun to make you think that perhaps he isn't the one who really wanted a servant after all, and that maybe it’s just his mother and society who have pushed him into getting one. For although it’s not as if you’d expected to have lots of contact with him, he is your employer after all, _not_ your friend, you had thought that there might be a word or two more from him than the polite one or two that you've been given over dinner, considering the fact that you’re the only two there after all. Whilst even that minimum amount of contact from him seems to have come in a rather absent-minded and reluctant fashion; as if he’s still mostly stuck in whatever thoughts he’s currently having when he speaks to you. All in all its gotten to a point where you could mostly believe, between the time that Mr. Holmes is at work and the time when he’s in residence but you don’t see him, that you were living completely on your own, a thought that, whilst nice sometimes, isn't half lonely when you’re on your own in your room in the evening and you've barely had any company all day. 

 

You’re in your room again on that seventh night, sitting on top of your bed reading, and feeling rather miserable about it all when there comes a surprise-a knock on the door. Your first thought is shock and then horror that you've forgotten to do something. 

 

“Yes Sir?” you call with your voice wavering a little. For you’re sure that Mr. Holmes, from the little that you've seen of him, will show little leniency towards you if you've done anything wrong. 

 

“Yes, I erm, I just came up to tell you that if-if you ever get fed up of being up here, then you’re most welcome to come and sit downstairs with me in the living room,” Mr. Holmes’s slightly muffled voice comes through the door. For a moment you’re so stunned by the suggestion that though your mouth drops open no words come out. Mr. Holmes must sense that he’s surprised you for he adds, “It’s rather chilly after all in this house, especially in that room, and I dare say that you’d probably find yourself more comfortable sitting downstairs.”

 

You take a moment to just swallow. Then, finally getting yourself under control once more, you get out, “Oh, that’s very kind of you Sir, most kind in fact”-and Mycroft swallows-“But I wouldn't want to intrude.”

 

“No, no you wouldn't be,” comes Mr. Holmes’s quick reassurances. 

 

You don’t know what to make of that. So again you just swallow for a moment, before you say, “In that case thank you very much Sir,” in a gracious fashion, and you don’t know why but you can imagine Mr. Holmes smiling at that. 

 

Such a feeling grows even more certainly inside you when you hear him say, “In that case perhaps I’ll see you downstairs shortly?” for there seems to be something oddly triumphant in his tone, and you get the sudden feeling that perhaps Mr. Holmes hasn't had much experience of dealing with people outside his work. 

 

“Yes Sir,” you say automatically, and as you do you feel oddly happier and less lonely yourself. 

 

Still you’re nervous too at the idea of sitting downstairs with him and of perhaps having to begin all attempts at conversation yourself. For if what you've seen over the last few days is right and Mr. Holmes isn't the biggest of talkers then perhaps you’ll have to. So, for a moment you just swallow, your hands still against the book, which rests against your knees, whilst you try and digest what just happened and prepare yourself for the oddly different evening that you find yourself about to have. 

 

Then, whilst you nod and tell yourself not to be a scared little girl right now, for you’re a grown woman who’s more than capable of conducting a polite conversation with a man you barely know, you get up, smooth down the thin, light grey dress that you’re wearing, and make your way out of your room, taking your book with you. For at least you can always read if the conversation becomes too strained or difficult. 

 

Despite you trying to take control of the situation though you still feel nervous as you make your way downstairs, and your heart beats nine to dozen, whilst your lips part to let out every one of your soft, apprehensive breaths. 

 

When you finally get downstairs you make your way to the living room, your hands growing ever more clammy as you do so, before you come to a nervous stop in the entranceway. 

 

Mr. Holmes, who stands by the fireplace with his body half-turned towards the door and his elbow resting against the grand, dark mantelpiece, as his hand holds a glass of red wine, spots you at once, and he puts his glass instantly aside on the small side table that’s next to the wing-back chair, which has its back to you, before he steps towards you. 

 

He’s wearing a dark suit with a silver waistcoat that glistens in the firelight and a blue neck tie, and you can’t help but notice, not for the first time that day, that he wears it very well. 

 

The pair of you greet each other awkwardly then, you doing a curtsy and him bowing, before he motions with his hand for you to come further into the room. 

 

“Good evening Sir,” you tell him as you take a few hesitant steps towards him. 

 

“Good evening Miss L/N,” Mr. Holmes replies just as formally, before the expression that’s on his face changes a little as he spots the book that you’re clutching. “Ah, you read,” he exclaims with a bit of a nod, before, as he sees the ripple of something that crosses your face he quickly adds, “Not that I was implying that”- and, seemingly not knowing how to go on he breaks off rather awkwardly. You can’t know that he’s inwardly chastising himself for not being able to get away from his cold self as much as he wants to right then. 

 

“Oh don’t worry your head about it Sir, it’s most all right,” you inform him promptly, before you smartly sit down in the wing-back chair that he offers you, whilst you hold your book to your lap. “I know that not all women can read believe me, and I know that not everyone thinks that it’s important for women to get an education,” you carry on as Mr. Holmes takes the seat opposite you. 

 

“But you think it important?” Mr. Holmes asks you, and he looks as if he’s curiously awaiting your answer, for he shifts to the edge of his chair.

 

“Oh yes Sir, very important,” you begin passionately, before you catch yourself and hesitate from continuing. For you know that he might not share your opinion. Then, not wanting him to think that you've got ideas above your station, you quickly say, “Forgive me Sir, I appreciate that not everyone is of the same opinion and I wouldn't want you thinking any less of me because of mine.”

 

“No, no, on the contrary I think that it’s probably a sensible idea for women to be educated and I’d be keen to hear why you feel the same,” Mr. Holmes reassures you, before he picks up his glass and takes a sip of his wine, swirling the liquid around his mouth, whist he watches you carefully the whole time. Then he turns his head and swallows it promptly, before he settles his glass back down on the side table. 

 

 _“Oh,”_ you begin, whilst you feel surprised by his reaction, not to mention about how open-minded he’s being. “I know some would be of the opinion that we don’t need to be educated since our main intended role in life is to look after our offspring”-

 

“Some would say that, that’s the most important role of all,” Mr. Holmes interrupts you with an indulgent smile, before he goes on, “And even more reason for why women should be educated.” 

 

Feeling surprised by him again you smile a little tentatively at him, before slowly it turns into a more confident one when he keeps his steady gaze on you. 

 

“I agree Sir,” you say, before, feeling bolder, you add, “In any case I think there are _far_ more important things that women could be doing than spending their evenings knitting”- Mr. Holmes cuts off your words with a raucous laugh, and you grin at once, flushed in your triumph. Then you just listen to it for a moment, admiring the fullness of it. But then, when your employer seems to get control of himself once more, before he looks at you suddenly with a most serious and intent expression on his face you think of something, so you say, “I can knit though Sir, if you ever want me to fix something of yours”-

 

Mr. Holmes waves a hand at you, so you break off, before you listen as he says, “I'm sure you can Miss L/N,” with the corner of his lips quirking up as he looks at you. 

 

You smile at each other again, and it’s odd, or perhaps not odd at all really, but everything seems to get easier after that one exchanged smile. Everything becomes a little lighter; a little more trusting, and things become pleasanter between you. 

 

Once you get up and begin to leave him for your bed Mycroft can’t help but think that you’re a curious woman. A very curious woman indeed to have made him laugh so easily and to have made his defences feel like they were slowly crumbling down the more that he spoke to you, and he finds himself turning his head and smiling after you without being able to help it. 

 

*

 

You spend all of your free time in the living room from that moment forward, mostly reading, but in between doing that you talk to Mr. Holmes, and you find yourself growing more and more amazed by the range of knowledge he possesses in so many different topics. But whilst you enjoy listening to him you can’t know how much Mycroft’s enjoying finally having someone who seems genuinely interested to hear about all of these things. Indeed having someone who’s curious and who asks all the right questions in the right places reminds him a bit of when he used to live at home with his brother. Except for the fact that, unlike Sherlock, _you_ always seem genuinely happy to listen and learn from him. 

 

One night, after he’s just explained to you about the process behind photography-something which had come up after he’d been on the phone to Mummy and he’d then explained to you that she wanted to get a family photograph taken whenever he next went home-he just watches you for a moment as you go back to your reading. Watches as your face gradually turns more serious underneath the firelight, and watches as you shift your position slightly and tilt your head as you become more engrossed by the written word once more. Then he smiles at you briefly, before he makes to go back to his own reading. Yet just as his fingers are reaching for the newspaper that he’d left on the arm of his chair he notices a flicker of something cross over your face. So he withdraws his hand and just watches the way that your brow furrows for a moment. 

 

“Is anything the matter Miss L/N?” he asks just a moment later. 

 

You, feeling surprised by the suddenness of his words and the fact that he’d noticed your blossoming problem, just jerk your head up so that you can look at him for a moment. Then, when you come to see the way that his eyes are fixed on you so intently with something curious inside them, you point at your book and say, “Oh, it’s just this word Sir,” and you sound both troubled and flustered by the thing as you do so. 

 

“Which one in particular are you having trouble with?” he asks. 

 

You look back down at your book again, tilting it slightly and mouthing something as you keep your gaze fixed on it, your brow furrowed. 

 

Mycroft, seeing that you’re trying to sound out the word without much success, shifts to the edge of his chair, before he promptly gets to his feet and goes around so that he can be in a position to see the book too. Then, once he comes to be standing by the side of your chair you point the word out to him and he leans down so that he might be able to see it more clearly. “Ah, _‘loathsome,’_ ” he gets out, his brow smoothing over, and you look up at him curiously, “Essentially it means something that’s horrible or disgusting,” he explains to you as he leans back again. Then he can’t help but add, “The opposite of all your dinners for example,” on his way to sit back down, and his lips quirk upward when he hears the sound of your tinkling laugh. 

 

“Can you say it again Sir?” you ask, eager now, and leaning forwards so that you’re sitting on the very edge of your seat. 

 

 _“Loathsome,”_ he enunciates carefully, and then his lip quirks upwards in the next moment when your lips move to try and replicate the way his had. 

 

“Loathsome,” you attempt, albeit in a hesitant fashion, and your voice makes a bit of an unnecessary hiss out of the final half of the word. 

 

 _“Loathsome,”_ he tries again, leaning forwards a little now himself, and your face scrunches up a little in concentration as your eyes fix themselves onto his lips. 

 

“Loathsome,” you try again, and you’re nearly perfect this time. 

 

“Not bad Miss L/N,” Mycroft tells you. 

 

Something about that moment, perhaps it’s just the thrill of having learnt something new, or maybe it’s even the way that Mr. Holmes looks and the way that his face is half-bathed in the firelight makes you say, “Call me F/N Sir.”

 

His face contracts for a moment, as if he’s struggling with something, and indeed he is. For he’d like to be able to return the favour and tell you to call him _‘Mycroft’_ , but your words have reminded him about the fact that you’re his servant _not_ his friend, and that for you to be on such terms with each other would perhaps be something that would be deemed _loathsome_ by everyone else in society. 

 

Seeing such a thing your face gets a knowing sort of recognition on it for a moment. Then you lean back in your chair and tell him in a brisk fashion, “It’s quite all right Sir, you’ll always be Mr. Holmes to me, as is proper,” and you don’t feel particularly sad about that because you’re just acknowledging an universal truth. 

 

Mycroft feels both happy and sad in that moment though, and he doesn't understand why. So, unsure what to do and how to respond, he just looks at you. But when he sees the way that you’re smiling at him he gives you a brief half-smile in return, before you both settle back into your reading. 

 

*

 

When you go downstairs to the living room one night, a few days later, it is to find that Mr. Holmes isn't there, and you can’t help but feel disappointed. 

 

Still though you go in and sit down all the same, chiding yourself a little as you do so, for it’s not as if you’d made an agreement with Mr. Holmes to meet in the living room every night, rather it had just been something that had happened. In any case you being what you are, which is Mr. Holmes’s servant, you know that you can hardly expect anything more than this sort of behaviour from him. For he’s your employer after all, _not_ your friend. But still, knowing such things now doesn't make you any less angry or annoyed with yourself for forgetting them in the first place, and for getting so comfortable and sub-consciously expectant of what your daily routine will contain. Nor does it make you feel any less angry with yourself for getting to a point where you’re relying mostly on him to be your only contact with another person. You feel a sudden pang then as you miss all the other servants back at the Holmes manor, not to mention Sherlock. Whilst you can’t help but think that you’re in a very sorry state indeed if you’re relying on your employer as part of your overall happiness. Yet such anger with yourself doesn't stop your heart from jumping pleasantly when Mr. Holmes suddenly strides into the room. Nor does it stop a slight gurgle from leaving your mouth or your hands from jumping up a little off your book so that you can quickly swipe away the desperate tears that had begun to fall as you’d thought about everything. 

 

Mr. Holmes doesn't seem to notice how emotional you’re feeling however, for he just stops a little away from you. Then his serious expression softens slightly as he looks at you, before he says, “Ah, F/N, I was hoping that I might find you here, could you come with me please?” 

 

“Of course, of course I could Sir,” you say, jumping up now and making to bring your book with you. 

 

“Leave that here please,” Mr. Holmes says, and then when he catches sight of the slightly startled expression that you pull, before you half-swivel around to lay your book down neatly on the side table, he adds, “It’s nothing to worry about.”

 

“That’s a relief to me Sir,” you tell him quite honestly, before you adjust the sleeves on your dress, again a grey one, and take a few hesitant steps towards him. 

 

It’s then that he starts a little. Then that he first becomes more aware of all the emotion that’s on your face. “Is everything all right?” he asks, “Forgive me, but you look like you've been crying. Everything’s all right at home I hope?” and it’s just as much of an astonishment to him that he finds himself caring so much about what the answer is as it is to you that he’s asked such things in the first place. 

 

Naturally you hesitate a moment, but when his eyes start scanning your face even more intently you tell him quickly, “Yes Sir, I'm perfectly fine, the same as far as I know can be said for everything at home, and no I haven’t been crying,” before you duck your head a little on the pretence of adjusting your dress. 

 

Mr. Holmes peers at you still for a moment. Then, when he comes to realize just how much he’s leaning forwards towards you because of the way that you won’t look at him, he straightens his position, before he says, “Right. Good, I'm glad to hear it,” and you give a little nod of acknowledgement to show that you've heard his words. “If you could please come with me then,” Mr. Holmes goes on as you look up at him once more. 

 

“Yes Sir,” you say with a bit of a nod, eager to please as usual despite the odd emotions that have been rattling through you ever since you first came into the living room, and Mr. Holmes smiles a little at you being such a thing. For despite the fact that he feels certain, despite his limited amount of interaction with women, that you've been crying, he can’t help but feel a little encouraged by the fact that you’re still showing this one trait like you usually would. 

 

He gestures for you to go out of the room first, before he leads you across the entrance hall through a door and into the study. Yet instead of stopping there, like you expect him to, he strides across to the same door that you couldn't open on your first day and the same door that you've always found to be locked ever since. You trot after him. But though he’s been quite serious and determined up until this point, as he comes to a stop, before he pulls a set of keys out from his pocket, a curious sort of excited energy seems to thrum from him instead. Whilst his fingers appear to be suddenly clumsy as they make to find the right key. Then, before he makes to insert said key into lock, he pauses and turns to you. 

 

“I feel like there should be more of a big moment where this room gets revealed to you,” he confesses, and the way that his body’s practically quivering with energy and the way that his eyes are full of a sparkle that you've never seen to them before makes you feel a little giddy with excitement too. 

 

In fact it makes you feel brave enough to joke, “Well I could close my eyes Sir, if it will help sustain the magic that’s making you act like a little boy on Christmas morning,” and because your voice comes out with this fondness for him that you hadn't expected, there’s a moment of sudden awkwardness between the pair of you. A moment where he looks at you intensely with those blue eyes of his and his lips slightly parted, and one where you can only look at him briefly to take in these things, before you have to look away again. You wonder then what on earth’s going on with you. For you’d become aware of the fact that you liked Mr. Holmes, that you liked the fact that he’d started talking to you more and that you liked how he was helping you with your reading, but the amount of warmth that you’d suddenly felt towards him when you’d spoken those words-

 

“I have a better idea,” Mr. Holmes says, interrupting your thoughts now, so you look at him, biting your lip a little as you do so. Then you gasp and your hands automatically fling up to your mouth, because he tugs off his neck tie with a flourish. He smiles a little at the way that you quickly avert your eyes from him and look off to the side with your cheeks appearing suddenly rosy, before he murmurs, “I only meant for you to cover your eyes with it, nothing sinister.” 

 

You swallow and smile a bit, before you force yourself to look back at him, reminding yourself to act like a mature grown woman and not a silly little girl as you do so. Then you keep your eyes rather determinedly on his face rather than letting them sink down, before both of your hands automatically begin to reach across to the other’s. Your eyes go to your fingers as you slip the tie slowly from his, and his eyes follow suit. Then you let out a little breath at the soft feel of the tie, before slowly you pull it up towards your face, and you can feel Mr. Holmes’s eyes watching you all the time. Another breath escapes you in the next moment as you push it against your eyes, and not only feel the softness of it against your sensitive skin, but smell Mr. Holmes’s scent on it. Then you swallow, before you affix it lightly around the back of your head with slightly clumsy fingers.

 

Mycroft watches you curiously all the while, and then when the tie is securely fastened and covering your eyes and your hands lower back down to your side once more, he lets out a, “Right,” before he turns back to the door, jangling the keys a little as he does so. 

 

You hear the lock of the door clicking open a moment later. 

 

Then you hear the slight rustle of Mr. Holmes’s clothes as he turns back to you, before there’s silence. You can’t know that Mr. Holmes is using this rare opportunity to just look at you and take you in without there being any reason to stop or a rush to look away. Can’t know that he’s taking in your slightly flushed complexion, the way that a few strands of hair hang slightly loose from the way that you've got it pinned down to the back of your head. Can’t know that he’s taking in your slightly parted lips and the way that your chest falls up and down on a slightly irregular basis, before his eyes sweep up to drink in the way that you look with his tie obscuring your eyes once more. 

 

Once he becomes aware that a significant amount of time has passed since he opened the door however and that you’re probably wondering what on earth’s going on, he clears his throat softly, before he announces, “I'm just going to take you by the arms and guide you in, because there’s a bit of a ridge between the rooms and I wouldn't want you to fall.”

 

A fluttery kind of breath escapes your mouth as you nod. 

 

He tentatively steps forwards and places his hands on your upper arms. He lets out a bit of a breath as he does so, and you start a little when the contact’s made. “Sorry,” he says automatically. 

 

“It’s fine Sir,” you get out just as mechanically, and he nods at once even though you can’t see him. 

 

Then he inwardly chides himself for doing such a thing, before he clears his throat again. He slowly increases the pressure on your arms as he guides you forwards, moving you steadily and going backwards himself until you’re finally both in the room. 

 

You let out another little breath when you feel him let go of you a moment later. 

 

“You can look now,” he says, and you can feel him stepping aside, so slowly your hands go up to fumble against his tie once more. 

 

You tug it down from your eyes a moment later. Then you let out a gasp and nearly drop the tie altogether, and you look down quickly and hurriedly grasp hold of it properly again with your fingers, before you look up once more. 

 

“Sorry Sir,” you get out a little breathlessly, as you take in the way that he’s watching you with something like amusement in his eyes. 

 

“It’s perfectly fine,” he tells you, before he confesses, “In fact that’s a far better reaction than even the one _I_ could have imagined,” and as he takes his tie back from you now he asks, “What do you think?” 

 

You go forwards and take in the room more and he turns to watch you as he puts his tie back on with slightly fumbling fingers. 

 

The room is illuminated by gas lamps, which protrude and are settled in between tall, wooden bookshelves that line three of the walls, and which section the room off, giving little nooks for people to hide in. There’s a small, wooden table off to the left just in front of a large, lit fireplace, and on it are a small pile of books, whilst several rickety looking wooden chairs stand beside it. Your eyes come to roam upon the books that you can see more intently. There’ll all old looking, yet fascinating, and you feel sure that there are more books clustered together in this one room than you've ever seen anywhere in your life. Whilst though the tall windows at the bottom of the room are now covered by sweeping long maroon curtains, you feel sure that when they’re open if you were to look out of them you’d be able to see part of the driveway, a slither of the sweeping lawns and perhaps part of the fountain too. 

 

“It’s beautiful Sir,” you tell him, as you look back to him now. 

 

He smiles and hums, his hands in his pockets as he rocks back and forth on his heels, his eyes sparkling. “Look up,” he tells you gently. 

 

You do so and, “Oh my word! Oh Mr. Holmes Sir! It’s amazing,” you breathe. For upon the ceiling is the most beautiful piece of art that you've ever seen, a painting that depicts cherubs in heaven. As your eyes spin back down to him once more, in that moment, what with you feeling suddenly light-headed, you feel like you might be in heaven too. “Oh, it’s absolutely awe inspiring,” you breathe, “The whole room is.”

 

“Yes, I thought you might like it,” Mr. Holmes comments as he adjusts his position a little. Then he goes on cautiously, “I did think that if you stumbled across a book that you fancied looking at, whilst you’re cleaning, you’d be most welcome to read it as long as you made sure to return it to its proper place afterwards.”

 

Though your face had fallen slightly at the mention of your duties and the reminder of your position, it soon brightens again when the full realization of what he’s offering hits you. 

 

“Oh Sir,” you exclaim as you lightly clap your hands together just beneath your chin and look around once more. “Oh, that would be wonderful,” you add. 

 

Mr. Holmes, looking rather pleased with himself now, murmurs, “Good,” before he can’t help but add, “I don’t think I've ever seen anyone look so pleased to have access to a library. Could it be _you_ who now looks like a child first thing on Christmas morning?” and you smile at once at that, before you look away in an embarrassed fashion. Then you quickly look back again so you can exchange another smile. 

 

*

 

It’s that night, when you’re back in your bedroom and staring up at the dark ceiling as you lie in your bed, that your mind goes back to your earlier thoughts on that sudden warmth that you’d felt for Mr. Holmes, and as it does and you remember how you’d felt so pleased to get to spend some time with him after all, and how you’d felt this strange, peculiar fluttering in your stomach when you’d been blind folded and sensed that Mr. Holmes had been looking at you, not to mention the way that you’d just wanted to breathe in the scent of him that had been on his neck tie, you know without a doubt in your mind that somehow you've fallen in love with him. The thought makes you feel scared, apprehensive and strangely wonderful all at once. But the moment you feel all those things is the moment that you also feel sad. For perhaps a few years ago, before your family had fallen upon hard times and when there had still been money around, not to mention when you’d been able to buy as many pretty dresses as your heart desired, there might have been a chance for you to have met Mr. Holmes in different circumstances. A chance for you both romantically. But now, when he sees and thinks of you as his servant, what chance is there for you? 

 

That morning you worry that because you’re now aware of how you feel that you might become even more awkward in front of Mr. Holmes and that he’ll surely pick up on the difference in you. But, much to your relief, things proceed as normal, if you don’t count the fluttering that you now get in your stomach at every first sight of him, and things proceed in quite a normal fashion for the next week. * 

You have to dedicate a couple of evenings to putting the Christmas decorations up around the house. Though of course you find yourself becoming more excited and cheerful as the house steadily becomes more festive, part of you can’t help but miss the usual evening routine that you have with Mr. Holmes. So it’s a delight to you, not to mention a surprise, when you suddenly feel his presence just as you’re struggling to hang up a piece of tinsel along the banister of the staircase. You’re standing on your tiptoes at its bottom so that you can try and flip the end of the tinsel over without disturbing the rest of it, and you can’t know that the sight of you attempting to do such a thing had made him smile. You let out a little breath as he comes to stand behind you and when you feel the lightest press of his body against yours. Then you watch as he flicks the tinsel to where you want it with ease and grace, his hand reaching just above yours to do so. 

 

You turn to him as he steps away from you once more, before you say a rather breathless, “Thank you Sir,” and he smiles at you. But then when he turns and makes to draw a long piece of gold tinsel out of the circular tin that’s on the floor, you add hurriedly, “You don’t have to do that Sir,” for you don’t want him to think that just because you were struggling you’re incapable, and nor do you want to cause him any trouble. 

 

“It’s all right,” Mr. Holmes begins with a quick smile at you, before as he adjusts the piece of tinsel that he’s just added to the staircase and thinks of something he confesses, “This is the first time actually that I've put decorations up since I left home.”

 

 _“Oh,”_ is your first reaction, whilst you try not to look at him too much. For although you’re naturally curious to know more because Mr. Holmes has rarely referenced anything personal since you've been working with him, you don’t want to look too keen and make him clam up. But even though you’re trying to strike a proper balance between these two things, when it dawns on you even more about what he’s just said, you can’t help but point out, “You left home years ago,” whilst you look sideways at him. 

 

“I know,” he tells you just a moment later with a soft smile, one of his hands still raised and brushing against the tinsel as he looks at you once more. “I guess I never had a reason to, before now”-

 

Your lips part, before you blush a bit as you get out hurriedly, “If you don’t want me to put them up Sir”- for again you don’t want to be doing anything that he doesn't want you to. 

 

“No, no, I like them,” he assures you quickly, and he looks worried that you've misunderstood him now. But you can’t know just how much he’s worried that he hasn't got his words out right. For although he knows it’s senseless to expect you to understand when he’s not even quite sure what he’s trying to tell you fully himself, he does know that he wants to thank you for your work and make you realize that you _have_ had a good impact on both him and the house since you arrived. 

 

But still he can tell that you’re decades away from understanding what he wants you to when you say; “I meant to ask you Sir, will you be going home for Christmas this year?”

 

He wonders, as he looks at you, whether he should again attempt to try and get across what he wants you to know. But then, when he sees the way that your eyes slowly shift on to him more as you wait for an answer, his resolve crumbles and he gets out a weary sort of, “Yes.” Then for a moment the pair of you just carry on decorating. But Mycroft’s just bent down to reach for a sprig of holly from a box when something suddenly occurs to him. So he straightens up again, before he asks, “I expect that you’ll be wanting to go home to your own family?” 

 

You shift your position and bite at your lip. Then you tell him, “Not if you need me for anything Sir,” and as you come to finish your words you look back at him once more. 

 

Mycroft looks away from you as he considers everything. For he senses that you genuinely wouldn't mind going to Holmes manor with him, and as it occurs to him that you’d probably enjoy the chance to see everyone again he feels an odd twinge of something inside him. The fact that this will also be the first time that you've been away from each other since you've started to work for him also makes him feel a bit strange. But then, knowing what it’s ultimately right to do, he looks back at you and says softly, “No, you should go and be with your family.”

 

“I don’t mind Sir, if you need me”- you begin, and though of course you do mind, there’s a great part of you that’s not only curious but that thinks that a Christmas spent with the Holmes’s, and not to mention a chance to get to see everyone again, would be far more interesting than a Christmas with your own family and with your mother making her odd, and at times rather disparaging remarks towards you. 

 

“No, it’s most all right,” Mr. Holmes interrupts you, before he clears his throat a little, and you can’t help but feel slightly disappointed by his words. But then he distracts you once more when he says, “I’ll be home a little earlier tomorrow. I've arranged for two men to bring a Christmas tree for us, I thought we could have it here in the entrance hall?” 

 

“That sounds lovely Sir,” you get out, whilst your heart acts of its own accord when it gives a little flip at the use of the word _‘us.’_ For he’d almost made it sound as if it was your house as much as his, whilst him valuing your opinion also makes you feel happy. 

 

Mycroft looks at you for a moment, his eyes scanning your face. Then suddenly he finds enough courage to suggest, “Perhaps we could decorate it together?” although as soon as he says it he finds that he has to look away from you.

 

You smile a little at him doing such a thing, before you watch the slight bob of his throat as he swallows. Then when he looks back at you, you know that he’d desperately not only like but also appreciate it if you could respond. “Yes, yes of course Sir, I’d like that,” you tell him. 

 

The pair of you exchange a small smile with each other at that, Mycroft feeling incredibly pleased and you feeling encouraging as you do so, before you quickly look away from each other again. 

 

*

 

The Christmas tree is delivered that following afternoon. You end up feeling a little flustered and anxious at first because Mr. Holmes hasn't come home, and the fact that the men’s clothes are filthy, as are their boots, which trail mud through the house, doesn't exactly help things either. That’s not to mention the pine needles that get dropped all over the entrance hall. Whilst you don’t even know where Mr. Holmes wants the tree either, for you’d thought that he’d be there to specify such a thing. So in the end you just have to take a risk and direct the men towards the left corner of the hall, where you feel the tree will look at its nicest, standing proudly beside the staircase. 

 

But just as the men are carrying it to said location you hear the clatter of horses hooves on the gravel driveway. So you hurry through the open door and run down the steps just as Mr. Holmes clambers down from the carriage with a distinctly harried look on his face. 

 

“Mr. Homes! Mr. Holmes! The men with the tree have arrived Sir”- you begin, and Mr. Holmes halts momentarily as he sees you, before he gives you a bit of a curt nod. Then he hurries past you. 

 

You turn around and hasten after him, lifting your dress up a little with your hands so that it won’t brush against the damp steps, before you re-enter the house just as Mr. Holmes is asking, “Who gave you permission to put the tree there?” 

 

You flinch a little at his tone for you have not heard it that cold since you first arrived. 

 

Then you force the words, “I did Sir, I thought it would look at its best there,” out, before you cower a little as he turns his head to look at you. 

 

Mycroft’s anger cools however as soon as he sees the expression that’s on your face and he realizes that you’re clearly expecting him to yell at you. Then he says, “In that case there’s no problem,” and he just has time to catch sight of your surprised expression, before he turns back to the men. He takes over the directing of them then, before he pays them as they leave. 

 

Once it’s just the two of you again, it’s a little odd, especially after Mr. Holmes’s flash of temper. So, feeling like you should say something you tell him, “Sorry Sir, I didn't mean to take over, it’s just that you weren't here and”- 

 

“As I've said it’s no bother,” Mycroft says, raising his hand now, “I just needed to make sure that they weren't taking advantage that’s all.” But then when he sees that you’re smiling he feels puzzled. “What is it?” he asks you softly. 

 

 _“Oh,”_ you begin, feeling uncertain about whether you should be honest with him or not. But in the end you decide to be when you confess, “I was thinking that, that’s the way you behaved with me when I first arrived.”

 

Mycroft can’t help but smile a little at that. But then he realizes that he probably _shouldn't_ , so he says, “You should probably start clearing up the pine needles, whilst I get the tree ready for the decorations.”

 

“Yes Sir,” you say softly with a small smile of your own as he moves away from you. 

 

Yet as Mycroft watches you covertly as you go down on your hands and knees to sweep the pine needles up with a brush and pan, and he sees how hard you’re working and how determined you are to get the floor clean, he starts to think that maybe he’d been unnecessary cold with you. Whilst though you hadn't seemed to mind he can’t help but think that you probably should have. 

 

So when you finish and come to join him by the tree he allows you to just stand by him for a moment. Then he looks sideways at you as he says, “I'm sorry if you felt I was being unnecessary harsh on you when you first arrived,” before he shifts his position a little uncomfortably and looks back at the tree when you look at him, “I guess I just had to make sure that you were trustworthy.”

 

“Am I Sir?” you can’t help but ask, even though you’re pretty sure that you already know the answer. 

 

“Well, you’re still here, aren't you?” Mycroft comments as his lips quirk up, and you smile when he can’t see you, before he does the same when you can’t see him. 

 

*

 

“F/N can’t you sit up straight?” a clear, sharp voice says, cutting through the rabble of noise that’s being generated by the excited chattering of your three sisters-Louisa, Hope, Abigail-and their husbands-William, George and Louis-as you all sit in the living room opening your presents on Christmas morning. 

 

It’s your mother’s voice, and the sound of it instantly makes your shoulders shoot up and your hands smooth down your grey dress from where you’re sitting on your knees. You’d been quite sure that you’d come across as mostly invisible to everyone else up until that point, just interjecting and making a sound of agreement whenever any of your sisters had demanded your opinion on a gift they’d received. But even though your mother’s order had surprised you, when you look across at where she’s hovering by an armchair where Louis is sitting, and you see her firm stare, you suddenly feel like you’re being unfairly picked on and grow defensive. 

 

“Sorry Mother, I wasn't aware that we were still pretending to be a family that should be held in high regard,” you quip in a haughty, bitter voice, your mind not being able to help but think of all the possibilities that you might have had with Mr. Holmes, which is something that you've found yourself brooding on a lot ever since you got back home. 

 

“Ooh, quite the little firecracker isn't she?” Louis remarks, crossing his legs now and taking a sip of his scotch. Abigail slaps at his knee affectionately, whilst your other sisters titter.

 

 _“Really,”_ your mother exclaims, drawing herself up now, which makes the long purple dress she’s wearing quiver a little, and which adds to her overall stern demeanour. “It’s true that we've been through some hard times as a family recently, but I already feel as if we’re beginning to rise and show our true colours again. So, that being said, I will not stand for the last of my daughters to be sitting on the floor on Christmas Day as if the only place she’s fit for is the workhouse.” She comes towards you now, so you stand automatically with a bit of an awkward smile upon your face as her hands make to clutch at your shoulders. “I think it’s high time that we found you a suitor, don’t you?” 

 

You’re so surprised that you just stare at her for a moment. Then you splutter, “Mother I don’t think”-

 

“Nonsense,” your mother quietens you, “It is more than time and you are more than ready, what with Abigail having married in this past year”- and she breaks off momentarily to send Abigail and Louis a fond look-“I see no reason why you shouldn't manage to do the same in this coming one, and more than that I will not have you working as a servant for a second longer than you need to”-

 

“I like working for Mr. Holmes,” you protest, “I don’t need a suitor,” and then before your mother can interrupt you carry on, “Besides who ever will look after Mr. Holmes if I were to marry now?”-

 

Your mother laughs now, as does everyone else aside from Abigail who’s frowning as she looks at you.

 

“Don’t be going around thinking that you’re irreplaceable my dear, servants are ten a penny these days,” Mother says, and you feel instantly chastised, not to mention embarrassed. 

 

But whilst part of you feels hurt by the idea that Mr. Holmes might be able to replace you so quickly, another part of you feels certain that Mother, because she doesn't understand the situation, has got the whole thing wrong. For servants might be ten a penny but you’re certain that good friends aren't. 

 

You open your mouth, about to protest some more, but Mother gets there first with the words, “I will not hear another word against it. Now, open the rest of your presents.” 

 

*

 

Abigail finds you that evening sitting on the edge of the bed in the room that you’re staying in, brooding again as you stare off into the distance. 

 

You’re both staying together in the room, sharing a bed, for the room, like the house is small. Yet after things started to spiral it was all your family could afford. 

 

Abigail enters on the prospect of putting some clothes in the wardrobe, and you shift your position slightly so you can watch her as she does so. 

 

Then you listen as she says, “I thought you’d be happy, finding a suitor was all you wanted not so long ago. You were practically giddy at the prospect if I remember, dreaming of your own fairytale prince to whisk you away in his carriage,” whilst she finishes hanging the last garment up, before she turns to you. 

 

You just bite at your lip and shrug. “Things change, people too.” For Abigail might have always been your favourite sister and, what with her only being three years older than you the one who you've always found yourself able to confide in, but you don’t think that even _she_ could help you with this. That even _she_ could help you with the thoughts that have been entering your mind ever since the topic of suitors had been brought up that morning-

 

“That’s true,” Abigail says, breaking off your thought and coming to sit by your side. “But I can’t help but think that the only reason you wouldn't be excited any more is because you've already found one and he’s what society would call an ‘unsuitable match’”- and she breaks off deliberately now, watching as your eyes widen and your mouth begins to move helplessly. “You don’t have to pretend,” she says, and her hand comes to rest over yours now, “I could tell by what you said earlier.”

 

 _“I”-_ you begin with your mouth hopelessly agape, before you get out hurriedly, “Nothing’s happened”- 

 

“Nor shall it probably,” Abigail says, causing your heart to tumble down inside your chest. For although you know that she’s right it’s rather a bitter pill to swallow, and Abigail must see such a thing on your face for she says, “Oh F/N,” sadly, whilst she strokes at your hand. “There are plenty of men who _are_ suitable and who will be _more_ than glad to have you as their wife I'm sure, don’t go mourning for what you've never had. If you and this, Mr. Holmes”- and she lowers her voice dramatically now as she says his name-“Well, if you and he had met before our family’s misfortune than who knows what might have happened. But now, well, you might as well face it my dear, you’re worlds away and you’re always going to be worlds away. Yet that doesn't mean that you aren't destined to be happy with somebody else because of it,” and, knowing that she’s right you just nod. Then, clearly more satisfied, she goes on, “Just think of this as being a good learning curve for you,” and you crinkle your nose up a bit at that for she sounds _dreadfully_ like Mother. When she looks at you again though you just nod, so she gets up with a smile and then leaves. 

 

Still, even though you know that you should just allow her words to set your mood right and make you never think on the way that Mr. Holmes makes you feel ever again, you can’t help but sit there and think of him. Can’t help but wonder what he might be doing at that very moment…

 

*

 

Mycroft thinks that all this Christmas business has gone on for long enough, and he’s just about to bring his role in it all to an end and announce that he’s going to retire to his room, when Father, who’s had a tad too much to drink, clicks his fingers impatiently for one of the servants, who are standing by the door to re-fill his glass. 

 

The servant, the young, blonde girl who had replaced you, hurries forwards, and her eagerness to please makes Mycroft think of you without being able to help it and he smiles. 

 

All goes wrong however the moment she takes the bottle in between her hands and makes to tip its remnants carefully into the glass, for the rim slips against that of the glass, and sends the amber liquid onto the wooden side table and off its edge. 

 

Mummy shrieks at once at the sight of the liquid forming a pool on her pristine, freshly cleaned carpet, and the servant lets out a cry of apology as she sets the bottle back onto the table, before she promises to fetch a cloth. 

 

That’s not good enough for Father though, and he heaves himself off his chair, nearly stumbling because of the amount of alcohol that he’s consumed, before he starts angrily yelling at the poor girl and threatening to have her replaced. 

 

Mycroft and Sherlock exchange a look, Sherlock looking nervy and anxious and pulling his knees up to his chest, as if, if his feet touch the floor they’ll be in danger of being torn off by a tropical sea monster. Mycroft knows this because it was the same act he’d pulled when they were children and pretending to be pirates. Or rather when Sherlock was pretending to be a pirate and Mycroft was taking on the role of the tropical sea monster. He knows too however that there’s no time for such childhood reminisces if Father is to be quelled. So, deciding to take charge, he gets to his feet, pushes himself in between Father and the servant girl, and attempts to wrestle Father back into his chair, whilst Mummy looks helplessly on. Father’s elbows keep jabbing at him however, and he’s spouting incoherent nonsense too, so the task isn't the easiest one. Mycroft feels glad therefore when Sherlock finally decides to join him so that they can finish it together. 

 

“Complete incompetence, complete utter incompetence,” Father rumbles once he’s back in his chair. 

 

Mycroft knows that it’s hopeless to try and argue the point, but something makes him do so anyway. Something makes him say, “Really Father, I know it was a little clumsy of the girl but there was no harm done.”

 

“No harm done?” Father booms, causing Mycroft to wince and Sherlock’s hands to twitch nervously, whilst his head turns to look longingly back at his chair. “The girl’s a complete liability.” Then Father leans even further back in his chair, before he chooses the next moment to announce, “See? This is why women shouldn't be educated, let alone get the vote, they can’t even cope with the duties they've got now,” and Mummy looks embarrassed, whilst Sherlock looks again towards his chair, before he scurries over to it and clambers up upon it as if it is his only sanctuary. 

 

Mycroft feels torn between staying where he is and moving too, but in the end, after his arms swing uncertainly back and forth for a moment, he looks at Father and says, “Father you must know that women have just as much right to be educated as men do. Why, I'm helping the girl you sent me with some of her reading, and she’s coming along really promisingly”- and he breaks off then so that his hands can go and lift the wet glass and bottle off the side table. The servant girl, who has just returned with a cloth, can begin to clean up the spillage then, but-

 

“Leave them,” Father commands, and so Mycroft’s hands only flutter around the two objects for a moment more, before he withdraws them. 

 

Yet it’s his mother who speaks next. His mother who looks at him and asks him in astonishment, “Are you Mycroft?” so Mycroft turns towards her, missing the curious look that Sherlock sends him altogether. 

 

“Yes,” Mycroft says, drawing himself up ready to face whatever consequences that might be coming because of his little remark. 

 

“That’s not your responsib-responsibility,” Father slurs now, so Mycroft turns back to him. 

 

“I know it’s not,” he pants, his hands curling up slightly, whilst he tries to steady his breathing, and Sherlock’s the only one in that moment to pay attention and feel curious about such things. “But it’s a task which I enjoy and a way that I've found pleasurable to spend my evenings nonetheless.” Then, making up his mind, he pulls the bottle and glass away from the table and nods at the servant girl to begin her tidying. 

 

She gives him a look of gratitude and things fall silent as she begins her work. 

 

Yet Mummy breaks it a moment later when she says, “Well, I think it’s a most kind gesture. Isn't it nice to realize how charitable our son is Siger?” and she comes towards Mycroft now and moves to stand slightly behind him, so that they can both face the head of the Holmes household together. But the way that she places a hand on Mycroft’s shoulder only makes him feel even more awkward. He shouldn't have worried though, for Father just grunts. So Mummy frowns disapprovingly at her husband for a moment. Then she says, “Wouldn't it be nice if both of our sons could be that way?” to further try to encourage her husband to comment on the achievement that she feels Mycroft has just blessed them with. Yet all she gets is another grunt, so Mycroft, wanting to get away, looks towards Sherlock instead. Sherlock though just sticks his tongue out at him. 

 

*

 

Things remain rather miserable for you, and it’s a relief when you’re able to get back to Mr. Holmes’s house. Once you get there though and you've established that Mr. Holmes is most likely in his study, you make for it at once, knowing that you have to tell him about the decision that your mother had made over the holidays. For there could be hell to pay you know should your mother turn up or suddenly arrange for you to meet with a suitor. Whilst you know that it’s best to inform Mr. Holmes now because you know that if you allow yourself to get back into your usual routine then you’ll end up putting it off and not telling him altogether. So you force yourself to knock at the study door. 

 

A response doesn't come, and you’re about to knock again. Just as you raise your hand to do so though, Mr. Holmes opens the door and a little breath escapes your mouth at the way that it perfectly mirrors your first encounter. 

 

“Ah, Miss L/N, how nice to see you, did you have a good holiday?” he asks as soon as he sees you, his face softening a little. 

 

Your stomach does something strange at seeing his face and hearing his voice, for _how_ you've missed him! More than you’d even thought you had. But you’re very much aware too of the potential problem that needs to be discussed, so you get out, “Yes Sir, I had a wonderful time, I hope the same can be said for you?” in a polite but slightly rushed fashion. 

 

He looks at you curiously for a moment, before he gives a bit of a non-committal shrug and runs a hand back through his hair as he says, “Oh, well, the usual family matters occurred.” 

 

“Actually it’s a matter to do with my family that I wanted to talk to you about Sir,” you confess, again in a bit of a rush, before you bite at your lip. 

 

Mycroft feels a bit surprised by that, so he opens the door a bit wider, before he asks, “I hope that your family’s all well?” 

 

“Oh yes, yes Sir they are,” you get out in a hurry, before you pause and rock back and forth on your heels a little. 

 

Mycroft, seeing your clear discomfort, says, “Perhaps you’d better come in,” before at your nod of gratitude he turns and leads the way inside. 

 

You follow him to the left side of the room where his large mahogany desk is. You stand a little in front of it, whilst he partly leans against it. Then you swallow and your hands fidget together for one final moment, before you say, “Um, my mother suggested, well, more _enforced_ really, that she’d like to try and find me a-a um suitor,” and you can barely look at him as you flush, so your eyes just dart up and down quickly, whilst your heart thuds in anticipation. 

 

Mycroft finds that his heart is being equally as dramatic in his chest, and he can’t help but feel surprised at your words. For though he’d had absolutely no idea of what you’d been about to say he hadn't been expecting that. But then, as he comes to take them in he feels puzzled, and, “What does that have to do with me?” he asks. 

 

You swallow and shift a little awkwardly now. “Well, it does mean that I might need to leave the house occasionally, only during the evenings mind, a-and I wanted to make sure that you were all right with that, a-and that you didn't think I was being neglectful o-or anything,” you confess. 

 

Mycroft’s face softens at that. It can’t help it. Then he smiles and shifts his position himself, before he says, “I'm sure that will be fine.” 

 

“Thank you Sir,” you say graciously, and so, when you look far happier a moment later, because he doesn't have any clue of what will all too soon be occurring, he feels happier too. 

 

Indeed he carries on most obliviously as the Christmas decorations come down over the next few days, the frost on the ground outside slowly begins to thaw and things go back to what’s become the normal routine. 

 

*

 

Your mother arranges your first meeting with a suitor to happen just a couple of weeks later, and after getting Mr. Holmes his dinner you wolf down your own. You hate doing so, especially after you've worked so hard on it and Mr. Holmes insists on hovering about in the kitchen with you rather than just proceeding to the living room as he normally does. For you don’t want to appear unladylike in front of him, but at the same time needs must and you have to hurry because your suitor is due to arrive by carriage in ten minutes and you have to wash and dry the crockery and do so much-

 

“I can do that later,” Mr. Holmes tells you when you begin to prepare the water for the washing up.

 

“Are you sure Sir?”- you ask, swivelling around, though you quickly break off when he nods. 

 

Then you watch as he draws himself up in the next moment, before you listen as he asks, “Aren't you supposed to be getting ready? I thought Mr. John was supposed to be arriving at seven?” 

 

“Yes Sir,” you reply a little breathlessly. “He is,” you confirm, and you give a quick smile, before you bustle past him and hurry upstairs. 

 

Once you return to the stairs after getting ready it is to find that Mr. Holmes is now standing at the bottom of them with his back turned to you and his hands tucked neatly inside his trouser pockets. 

 

He only hears you after you let out a little breath and begin to make your way downstairs, your hand on the banister, and though you’re not wearing a dress that’s much different from your everyday attire, just one that’s a deep blue colour-your mother had sent you it for the occasion-with your hair loose, you can’t help but feel nervous at what his reaction will be. So you feel pleased just a moment later at the way that his lips part when he turns and sees you, and as a flicker of something crosses over his face. 

 

You can’t know that as Mycroft takes you in he’s noticing that not only does having your hair down make you look younger and more carefree, something which he automatically approves of, he’s noticing and truly appreciating just how pretty you look. 

 

Yet noticing such a thing makes him feel odd and strange too. So all he can manage is a rather formal, “You look nice F/N,” when you reach him. 

 

Clearly even that had been more than you’d been hoping for, if the bright smile that suddenly appears on your face is anything to go by, and knowing that he’s just caused you to smile in such a way makes him smile and makes him feel more comfortable too. 

 

You thank him quickly, before you both go back to waiting, standing side by side alongside each other, whilst you listen out for the approaching clatter of horses hooves. 

 

As you do so Mycroft’s fingers rub against the material of his trousers, whilst your hands fidget, before they finally come to be clasped in front of you. 

 

Indeed there’s this odd tension and something that’s never been between you before, and Mycroft’s still trying to work out what it is when finally the sound of the carriage comes. 

 

“Ah,” escapes his lips automatically, whilst a slightly determined, “Right,” escapes yours. 

 

“I’ll help you get inside the carriage,” Mycroft says then, and he feels surprised by the words, for he’d simply been intending to wait with you until the carriage came and then leave you to it. You feel surprised too, too surprised to do anything more than nod in fact. So after a little awkward exchanged glance you both move forwards. 

 

Your suitor, Edward John-a twenty-nine year old who’s not far off Mycroft’s height and who has unruly dark hair underneath his top hat, which he sweeps off his head as soon as he sees you and who has brilliant green eyes-comes towards you both as soon as you get through the door. Then he stops halfway up the steps when you reach them and Mycroft closes the door behind him with fumbling fingers, whilst he watches the scene. He joins you both just in time to see John taking your hand and placing a delicate kiss upon it, and the sight makes Mycroft’s insides feel all strange. 

 

You pull your hand away quickly when you feel Mr. Holmes’s presence however, and Mycroft can’t help but feel like he’s just interrupted a moment that he shouldn't have. Then he and you exchange a rather flustered look with each other, before Mycroft feels John’s eyes upon his so he meets the man’s eyes instead. As soon as he does John clicks his heels together and gives a jerky little bow so Mycroft nods at him. 

 

“I came to help Miss L/N into the carriage,” he explains. 

 

“That’s very kind of you Sir, but I can do that,” John says, and Mycroft’s brow furrows for a moment, for he’s quite sure that he detected something hostile and icy in the man’s tone. 

 

However when you say, “I-I’ll see you later on this evening Sir,” it distracts him and makes his gaze turn back to you. 

 

He can feel his face softening as it does so. “Okay,” he tells you, before he nods at John again and then makes his way back to the door. 

 

He’s just about to push it open when the uncomfortable feeling that he can’t shake makes him turn back around. So he stays like that, his blue eyes piercing the dark, whilst he watches as John helps you into the carriage. Once John’s in himself you glance out of the carriage, back his way, and as you give him a bit of a forced, terse smile, before you quickly look away again he can’t help but get the sudden feeling that you’re uncomfortable too, and it makes him step forwards, makes him want to stop the carriage in fact. But before he can the carriage starts to move forwards, and it curves around half of the fountain, before it snakes back down the driveway. Mycroft swallows after it. Then he shakes his head a little irritably, before he turns and makes his way back inside. 

 

The uncomfortable feeling follows him though, and he just can’t relax, not even when he’s sitting by the fire in the living room. He just keeps thinking about the uncomfortable expression that had been on your face as you’d left him. Then, as he looks across at the chair that you’re usually sitting on he thinks that you should be there, and even when he tells himself off for being so stupid he can’t stop wondering about what you’re doing and whether John is treating you right. The thought that he might not be makes him feel uneasy, which in turn makes him feel alarmed and a little frustrated. For what is it to him if he doesn't? It’s not like your personal life has anything to do with him after all, and he bites at his lip now. Then, unable to sit down any longer he gets up and paces around a little. 

 

In the end though he can’t get away from his thoughts. So, feeling like he just wants someone to distract him right now, he phones home, hoping as he does so that Mummy will have some delicious piece of gossip that will get his mind off you altogether. 

 

Of course it’s Sherlock who answers, and as soon as he does Mycroft wishes that he’d had the common sense to foresee such a thing. So when he says, “Sherlock,” it comes out a little tersely. 

 

“Ah Mycroft,” Sherlock says, “Shouldn't you be helping your little servant girl to read or something?”

 

Mycroft frowns. Then he says, “Not necessarily, Sherlock,” in a crisp fashion, before he shifts his position and adds, “In any case she’s gone out for the evening, her mother’s trying to find her a husband”-

 

 _“Ah,”_ Sherlock says, and Mycroft hates how suddenly all-knowing he sounds. “In that case shouldn't you be enjoying your one night of freedom… _unless”_ -

 

“Unless what Sherlock?” Mycroft asks, and he suddenly feels grumpier now than he had, before he’d phoned. 

 

 _“Unless,”_ Sherlock begins rather deliciously, “You’d prefer it if she was with you”-

 

“Of course I wouldn't. Don’t be so ridiculous,” Mycroft interrupts his brother at once, though he can’t help but notice that he feels even more uncomfortable as he does so. 

 

“Are you sure?” Sherlock asks persistently, for he’s been pondering on why Mycroft-not one to be charitable before-would choose to help you with your reading ever since it had been revealed that he was doing so at Christmas, and the only possible explanation that he hasn't been able to eliminate is that his brother has somehow managed to fall in love with you. 

 

“Yes I am, goodnight,” Mycroft says, and without further ado he abruptly ends the call. 

 

His thoughts just seem to hum even louder then. Telling him that Sherlock might have a point after all. For despite his best efforts he hasn't been able to relax ever since you left with John, and he can’t exactly pretend that his mind has been troubled by anything else because its only been thinking of you. He curses softly now. Hating the fact that he’s somehow become overly fond of you, to the point where he’s worrying about your welfare even when you’re outside the house. But even more than that he hates the fact that Sherlock had somehow managed to see such a thing before he had. So, in an attempt to wash away his irritation and to cope with it all he pours himself another glass of scotch. Yet his thoughts barely begin to numb even after he’s downed three glasses of the stuff. In fact it’s not until he hears the sound of you at the door that they cut off completely and any irritation that he may have felt with you for somehow making him grow so fond of you fades to become replaced by the fear that something bad might have happened. 

 

Having become rather slumped down in his seat, and even having taken his jacket off [his red neck tie had long since been discarded and is now laying across the side table, half-curled around the bottom of his glass] he struggles up to his feet, before he hurriedly begins to clumsily tug his jacket back on. 

 

He can hear you laughing a bit to yourself as you walk toward the room, and the sound of it makes him curious and makes him stop adjusting his collar and forget about trying to smarten up his appearance any more. Then he looks across at you as you enter the room. 

 

Your laughter falters for a moment, and he can’t know how the sight of him looking more rumpled than usual had caught you off guard. 

 

“How was it?” he asks, all the tension that he’d been feeling all night coming out in those three words now, for although the sound of your laughter just then has served to slightly reassure him, he still wants to make sure for definite that you’re all right. 

 

Something flickers across your face as you wonder about the urgency behind his words and his appearance, before it relaxes as you come to consider the answer to his question. “Oh Sir, it was _awful_ ,” you get out, before you start laughing again. 

 

Mycroft might have felt worried by your words had the sound of your laughter not served to remind him that it hadn't had a bad impact on you. 

 

He gestures for you to sit down. Then as you do so you listen as he asks, “Would you like one?” whilst he indicates to the bottle of scotch. 

 

Your eyes flick in between him and the bottle for a moment. Then you shift your position a little, before you ask, “Could I Sir?”

 

“Mmmhmm,” he replies, before he goes across to the wooden drinks cabinet, fetches another glass and pours you some. 

 

He passes you yours, before he tops his own glass up. Then, once he’s sat down again and you chink your glasses together he toasts, “To hopefully better nights in the future.”

 

You giggle a bit at that, before you nod and sip at your own drink. 

 

You both slump back in your seats then and just examine each other for a moment. You take in how unusual it is to see him looking more casual like this, and it’s a sight, which you not only find attractive but one that makes you want to go over there, sit on his lap and adjust his shirt until more of his chest hair is revealed to you. For there’s definitely not enough on show at the moment and the sight of it intrigues you. Perhaps if you’d had more to drink then you’d even be bold enough to do so. But you’re still very much in your right mind and aware enough of the fact that he’s Mr. Holmes and your boss. Mycroft meanwhile takes in the slight curl of your hair and how rosy your cheeks look from your laughter. 

 

“If you don’t mind me asking what made the night so bad for you?” 

 

“Oh it was _awful_ Sir,” you repeat again, and Mycroft waits patiently, before you go on, “He talked about himself all night, he barely even asked a single thing about myself. Then he had the nerve to tell me what house we’d be living in if we were together and how many servants I’d have to help me and”-

 

“So he definitely wasn't a believer in women being educated then?” Mycroft can’t help but interrupt, and you laugh some more at that, before you down a little more of your drink. 

 

“No Sir,” you get out as you move to put your glass back down. Then you smile at each other. 

 

*

 

Over the next few days, and when he’s considerably more sober, Mycroft tries to work out what it is about you that’s made him become so fond of you, for he feels curious as to what exactly might have weakened his defences. 

 

But whenever he looks at you and finds himself smiling so easily, he begins to conclude that perhaps, for once, there really is no logical answer to that. Begins to conclude that that some things simply cannot be explained. Rather than perhaps feeling annoyed by the lack of answers as he usually would however, he just feels oddly satisfied by it, as if somehow that is the conclusion that he’s been looking for in the first place. 

 

*

 

Winter fades into spring, and as more suitors come your way, Mr. Holmes and you share more nights where you laugh about disastrous evenings where men, only rich by their fathers and not by their own hard work, take you out and reveal the little personality they possess. Whilst it's because of such laughter you've found that coming back from such outings has become your own favourite part of them. Such a fact of course embarrasses and shames you because you know that there can never be anything more between you and Mr. Holmes, but at the same you’re getting far too much pleasure and thrills from conversing and laughing with him to ever feel bad for too long. 

 

You might not be taking such nights all that seriously, but your mother however is, and she’s definitely not pleased with the way things are progressing. She even accuses you of not trying hard enough to make a good impression in her letters, whilst she claims that the men you've been seeing have come to believe that you’re equally as devoid in your personality as you believe they are. Yet though you feel a twinge of both irritation and shame at such words, not to mention the feeling that you’re letting your family down, and you feel the same whenever you read Abigail’s knowing remarks about the matter in her letters to you, it’s not enough to compel you to act otherwise. Not if it means risking everything nice that you've got going with Mr. Holmes. Besides, why on earth would you even want to find someone else when it would mean leaving him? 

 

Mycroft too is enjoying such nights, and he’s now found that he feels an odd sort of pleasure running through him whenever you return and reveal that you've been on yet another failed outing. Of course he never probes himself about _why_ he’s ended up taking so much pleasure from such a thing. Rather he just tells himself that because he’s fond of you and because he’d even go so far as to now privately acknowledge you’re his friend, he simply feels glad that although you've found yourself in such poor situations, you've come out on the other side of them still with such spirit inside you. 

 

*

 

After one such night at the beginning of April-a Saturday and the first dry day in days-where Mycroft got so amused by the re-telling of your latest outing that he’d felt the need to carry out a near perfect imitation of the man’s Scottish accent, he’s just making his way across the entrance hall when he finds himself stopping at the living room door at the sight of you humming along to a pretty little song that the gramophone’s playing. He’d taught you how to use the device about three weeks ago, and he’d told you that you were welcome to make use of it if the mood took your fancy. So the sight of you doing so now, swaying a little with a brush in your hand, whilst you dust the drinks cabinet, makes him smile and just stare at you in an entranced fashion for a moment. 

 

Then your hums get louder and you begin to get even more lost in the music, bending your arms as if you’re not dancing with a cleaning brush but with a man, and Mycroft feels a tingling sense of pleasure fill him as you stretch up a little on your tiptoes and half-close your eyes, for in that moment he feels like you could be dancing with him. You do a little half-twirl in the next moment, but stop dead as soon as you see him. Then you let out a little gasp as your arms lower, whilst the hand that’s clutching the cleaning brush flings it down to the floor. A moment later you bend to pick it up, before you slowly straighten up so that you can look at him, and there’s a blush on your face as you do so. 

 

Mycroft had taken a few steps into the room whilst you’d been bending to pick up the cleaning brush, and he now approaches you properly, before he stops just in front of you. Then, as your face heats up all the more, he murmurs, “Don’t stop,” whilst he looks at you imploringly all the while. “May I have what’s left of this dance?” he asks, and he’s too far gone to be able to think clearly now, for the vision of you dancing had seemed to warm his insides and addle his mind as much as drinking several glasses of scotch would have. 

 

You’re feeling even more awkward and embarrassed by this point however, and though you want to take up his offer a thousand reasons for why you shouldn't, and for why you should do what’s right and proper, suddenly fill your head. “Oh Sir, I-I couldn't, it wouldn't be right for me to, as kind as your offer is,” you say, twirling the brush a little, whilst you look off to the side. 

 

“I assure you, you could,” Mycroft informs you, taking the brush from you carefully now and tossing it aside. It lands with a soft clatter to the left of you. “We’re the only ones here,” he says, once he looks at you again, and you nervously meet his eyes. “So I think we can afford to ignore what’s right and proper for the duration of this song. Don’t you?” He raises his eyebrows at you now, but you just stare at him in a frozen fashion for a few moments more. When you don’t protest again, however, Mycroft simply murmurs, “Come, we don’t have much time left,” whilst he places his hands lightly on your waist. 

 

His eyes flick to yours again then. But when he sees that the time for resistance is clearly past, he slowly guides you forwards until your bodies come to softly bump against each other. Both of your hearts jerk in your chests as they do, and Mycroft very nearly comes out of the moment and gets hit by common sense once more. But thankfully he doesn't, so he guides one of your hands to his waist and takes the other with his own. 

 

Your throat feels dry and your heart races. Then, as he begins to move, with his eyes studiously on you all the time, and you follow his lead, letting him rotate you both in slow circles across the floor in the slightest moments that couldn't be any more meaningful, your heart beats all the more quickly. Whilst your body feels hypersensitive to all the light, fleeting touches that his body makes against yours. 

 

Mycroft’s mind is racing. Racing as it takes in every detail of you-the soft brush of your eyelashes against your face every time you blink, the swirling depths of colour in your e/c eyes, the way the free strands of your hair, which is mostly pulled back into a ponytail, curve so delicately around your cheeks. Not to mention the way that your lips are slightly parted, along with the delicate hue of red on your cheeks, and the way that your hand fits so perfectly into his.

 

He swallows, for in that moment you look so completely perfect to him that there can be no denying it any longer. No denying that he’s somehow fallen in love with you. For in that moment that is the only thing that makes sense. That is the only thing that explains why he _couldn't_ find a logical answer behind his feelings, which had already, somehow by that point, grown into love. Whilst it also explains why he’d felt so pleased by the fact that you _hadn't_ taken to any of the suitors who had been put in front of you. He swallows now. But whilst he feels scared by what he’s just realized, the fact that you’re in front of him and the gentle, soft music that’s playing in the background stop him from losing control and trying to run away from the situation completely. Instead, because of you, he finds that he’s able to step away from all his fears and just appreciate the beauty of the moment, and so, as the song comes to a close and the crackling of the gramophone descends into silence, he dips you automatically. 

 

A little gasp escapes your lips, before your breath quickly tightens in your chest when his face comes to hover just above yours. 

 

Mycroft takes you in one last time, before even the thoughts in his head stop and he begins to lower his head even further instinctively, angling it toward yours so that he might be able to kiss you. 

 

Your lips begin to part even more, whilst your eyes flutter shut automatically, and your heart gives a little jerk in your chest when you feel his breath ghosting across your skin for the first time. 

 

His lips are just moments from closing upon yours when it happens. When there comes a knock on the front door, and Mycroft’s eyes, which had been beginning to close slam open, as do yours. He nearly drops you then, as all his fears and anxieties come hurtling back into him, affecting his very spirit once more, and although he doesn't there comes a second knock on the door. 

 

He draws you both back up, before he lets go of you automatically, and you step back from each other a little awkwardly, neither of you knowing what to say. 

 

Your heart races as you look at him, for already you can see his face working hard to cover up what you know you’d seen on it. Working hard to cover up the gentle love and affection that had made your breath leave you as his face had hovered above yours. Working hard to make it smooth and even. Whilst if you hadn't been so certain that, that was what you’d seen, and if you hadn't perhaps had so much experience of seeing your sisters and their husbands looking at each other like that when they thought no one else was looking, then already the moment might have been fading inside your head and you might have been doubting yourself. But since you’re certain, all you can do is look at him in a little breathless fashion for a moment, as your mind wonders where things might go now between you. 

 

That is until there comes a _third_ knock on the door, which makes you jump and say, “I better go, _unless_ ”-

 

Mycroft just nods at that point, though he quickly wishes he hadn't and that he’d let you get the rest of your words out. For unless _what?_

 

You give him a bit of an excited, breathless smile then, thinking that he merely needs more time to adjust to what had just happened, and that you’ll of course talk about it later together, before you turn and hurry off to the door.

 

After Mycroft watches you scurry off his eyes roam towards the drinks cabinet, for he very much feels like he needs a drink in order to cope with what’s just happened. 

 

Before he can head over there though he hears your footsteps returning, followed by that of another, so he hesitates, before he decides to wait where he is. 

 

You give him a bit of another winning smile on your return, which irritates him a little considering whose just walked in behind you, and it’s possible that you sense such a thing, for you become vastly more professional when you say, “A Mr. Henry Ives for you Sir.”

 

Ives is a short man with thinning dark brown hair, dark brown eyes of the same colour, which shine with something that’s almost always playful, and today, to accompany such things, he’s also wearing a bit of a smirk. Mycroft knows the man from work, he’s repeatedly found himself disagreeing with him over one thing or another in fact, so they’re far from being friends and he can barely fathom what the reason for this unexpected social call may be. 

 

“Holmes,” Ives says, passing the black bowler hat that he’s clutching in between his hands to you now, before he makes to shrug off his black topcoat, revealing a grey three-piece suit underneath and the gold chain of a pocket watch.

 

“Ives, what an unexpected surprise,” Mycroft nods at him coolly, whilst Ives passes his coat to you. As he does so he looks at you with something like amusement in his eyes. Mycroft’s seen him looking at women like that before. Usually it comes just before he has his wicked way with them and discards them, and Mycroft doesn't like it, so he steps forwards. “How may I be of assistance to you?” he asks. 

 

“Ah, yes, sorry about this sudden intrusion old chum, but I was rather hoping I could have a private word with you. Perhaps your servant could fetch us a little tipple?” Ives asks, his gaze turning back to Mycroft now. 

 

Mycroft can feel you looking at him at that, as if you’re perhaps hoping he’ll say something in your defence, considering the nice moment that had just occurred between you and all. Indeed usually Mycroft would say that he could fetch such a thing himself, and save you the bother, but in front of Ives he feels the sudden need to behave with the highest propriety. So he looks at you, demands, “Hang those up and pour us some of the finest whisky from the cabinet would you?” and he feels glad when his tone comes out as even as the expression he feels is on his face, and when it doesn't betray anything that he’d begun to feel for you earlier. 

 

A flicker of something crosses over your face, and you feel both a little surprised and hurt by the cold, professional behaviour that’s suddenly being directed towards you. But, you reassure yourself a moment later, you've got company now, and Mr. Holmes probably just doesn't want to risk being presumptuous about anything until he’s talked about it all with you. So instead, when you feel Ives looking in between the pair of you curiously, you just say, “Yes Sir,” smartly, before you quickly turn on your heel and begin to stride out of the room. 

 

Mycroft feels relieved when you've gone. For your behaviour, which he was certain had drawn Ives’s attention, had been most irritating. “So, what is it that you want to talk to me about?” he asks, as his gaze turns back to Ives. 

 

Ives just studies him for a moment, before he thrusts his hands in his pockets and looks around the room, tilting his head upward as he does so. “I don’t suppose,” he begins as his eyes swivel back to Mycroft, “But no…probably not.” 

 

“What is it?” Mycroft asks, trying to keep his tone polite even though he’s beginning to get annoyed. 

 

“I was going to ask if you had a pack of cigars, I rather feel like having one, but you probably don’t smoke,” Ives confesses. 

 

“It’s just as well for you then that on the odd occasion I do,” Mycroft responds with a firm brush of lightness to his tone. He ends up saying such a thing just at the very moment that you walk back into the room and make your way towards the drinks cabinet. “Fetch us the cigars too please,” Mycroft tells you, and you look around at him in surprise. “Quickly please,” Mycroft says, feeling irritated with you for your hesitation. For why can’t you just behave normally? _But_ , a voice snipes in his head, is it any wonder that you can’t after what had just occurred? 

 

A flash of hurt crosses over your face. But then you do as you’re told, bringing the cigars over first, before you attend to the whisky. 

 

“That will be all,” Mycroft tells you, once you've placed both drinks down on their respective side tables, and you nod at him quickly, your eyes meeting each other’s momentarily, before you turn and hurry out. 

 

Ives is already on his cigar, sending curls of smoke above and around the wing-back chair, but even so he doesn't hesitate to turn his head so that his eyes can follow you, and even though Mycroft can’t see the man’s eyes he can clearly tell that they’re going to your derrière so he clears his throat without being able to help it. 

 

Ives turns back to him. Then he asks, “Tell me, have you ever tried some of those goods old boy?” 

 

Mycroft feels instantly repulsed by the way that Ives had just asked the question. Yet he decides to opt for innocence when he replies, “I'm afraid I don’t understand your meaning,” even though his heart begins to quicken, whilst he reaches for his drink automatically. 

 

He barely feels himself relaxing though even as the swirling, amber liquid goes down his throat, _especially_ when he sees the smirk that’s on Ives’s face. “Some interesting rumours going around town about your servant Holmes,” Ives comments, resting his cigar down on the ashtray that’s on the side table, before he takes a sip of his own drink now. 

 

“Are there?” Mycroft asks, his tone deliberately light, though on the inside he can’t help but worry and feel apprehensive about what Ives might mean. 

 

“Yes,” Ives continues, taking another mouthful of liquid and swirling it about in his mouth. Then he swallows it, his eyes on Mycroft all the time. “Apparently, from what I gather her mother seems to be having a bit of difficulty finding her a suitor. She’s put quite a few men in front of her, all kind, decent chaps, one of them a friend of mine actually, but none of them have worked out,” and Mycroft swallows now. “So, as you might expect, naturally some people are beginning to wonder what the reason might be for that. Some I've spoken to seem to think that the girl might merely have ideas above her station, fussy’s a polite word of putting it. But others, well _others_ Holmes”- and Ives pauses in a rather delicious fashion now-“Have begun to wonder if the reason she’s doing so badly is because she’s already got someone to have their wicked ways with her. _You_ perhaps.”

 

“Preposterous,” is the first thing that comes out of Mycroft’s mouth, though he can’t help but feel a little apprehensive at the way the conversation is going. Not to mention irritated. For he thinks of how typical it is for Ives to have come here now, just after the very moment that he’s finally worked out the depth of his feelings for you, and to make him realize even more of what a fool he’d just been by dancing with you. 

 

“Yes, that’s what I thought at first,” Ives confesses, “But then I asked myself, ‘ _Is_ it though?’ For here you are, a bachelor who likes to keep himself to himself, living in this big house with only the _girl_ for company…”

 

Mycroft just stares at him. 

 

“You don’t think the girl’s in love with you then?” Ives asks, and your breath hitches now from where you've been hiding, out of sight, just to the left of the door. “She seemed to be casting you some very interesting looks just now.” 

 

“No,” Mycroft responds with a firm promptness.

 

“ ‘No’ you don’t think she’s in love with you? Or ‘no’ that you don’t think she was casting you interesting looks just now?” Ives asks, and he looks like not only does he know how irritating he’s being in that moment but like he’s practically gleeful from it.

 

“Both,” Mycroft tells him with some relish in his tone, before he goes on, “Though I’d be interested to hear what conclusions _you've_ drawn from coming here today,” and his tone is distinctly icy now as he tries to get his own back on Ives. He tries to do such a thing even more when he asks, “That is why you came here today isn't it? To see things for yourself, to see how the girl and I behaved with each other, to try and draw your own conclusions?” and Ives immediately looks a little embarrassed. 

 

Yet in the next moment he lets out a bit of a sigh, before he goes on, “Look Holmes, I know that we haven’t always gotten along, but I can’t help but think that it would be a shame if all this were true. Not only would it damage your own reputation but that of your family, and one can’t help but think that people at work might start to question how sound your judgement is if they find out that you've been having it off with a mere servant girl.” 

 

Mycroft’s jaw twitches slightly now. For Ives’s reasons of common sense are exactly why he feels like he was so foolish for dancing with you just now, and exactly why a strong part of him is beginning to wish that it had never happened in the first place. But more than that, _wish_ that he’d never let it happen. 

 

Whilst you, still hidden, close your eyes as you begin to slowly feel all the excitement and hope drain out of you. For of course. How could you be so stupid as to forget your position again? How could you be so stupid as to both feel and act as if you were someone else? The girl you’d been before your family had descended into hard times? The girl who had little to worry about aside from finding a suitable husband? But still, says the last voice of that hope in your head, perhaps Mr. Holmes won’t mind. Perhaps he’ll dismiss all of Ives’s issues as simply as he’d explained so many things to you in the past. Perhaps all isn't lost, and you practically hold your breath now as you wait for him to respond. 

 

But Mycroft, as his fingers shift ever so slightly against his glass, says, “I assure you that there is no truth whatsoever in your claims. She’s nothing but my servant, and that’s all she’ll ever be to me,” and even as he says it he can feel the cold noose of betrayal tightening around his neck. Feel like he’s betraying not only just you, and thank God you can’t hear him in that moment, but his very own feelings and the very moment of such delicacy that he’d shared with you. 

 

You _can_ hear him though, and a gasp of pain and sadness escapes you, and you have to ram a hand over your mouth and close your eyes. For why is he being so cold and saying such things? Why is he showing absolutely no respect for what you know that you’d both felt rising inside you when you’d been dancing with each other? Why is he choosing to be so callous and mean? Not understanding any of it and knowing that you can’t stay there you move slowly away and glide, almost ghost-like upstairs, your heart breaking and tears leaking out of your eyes, before you finally get the chance to close the door of the attic behind you. You fall onto your bed in a heap in the next moment, ignoring the voice of reason in your head that reminds you of all the work there is to be done, and just choosing to bury your head in your pillow instead.

 

*

 

As the day goes by though, and you carry on with your duties, you begin to think more rationally about things, rather than just feeling upset from the initial shock of it, and slowly you begin to feel both more hopeful and determined. For it occurs to you that perhaps Mr. Holmes had only said the nasty things that he had because he didn’t want to be so open about things in front of Ives. He’s a thoughtful man after all, and who knows what goes on in that head of his. Perhaps he just wanted to think about the situation some more first and talk to you about it. After all, you’d never seen him look at you in such a way before as he had when you’d danced, whilst he’d certainly never asked you to dance with him before, so perhaps the revelation of him being in love with you is a new one to him, and one that he’d simply needed a little more time to adjust to than what Ives had given him. 

 

*

 

You’re feeling more hopeful by dinnertime about everything therefore, and you end up serving it to him a little expectantly. 

 

But, aside from thanking you for the meal, Mr. Holmes doesn’t say anything to you, and you start to feel a little dispirited again.

 

Still, you decide to carry on with your usual routine and join Mr. Holmes in the living room as you would usually, for no good can come from thinking and worrying about it all sitting in your bedroom you know. 

 

*

 

It soon transpires that no good comes of the matter anyway, for Mr. Holmes never joins you. No doubt he’s chosen to lock himself away in his study instead, and as you sit there alone your heart begins to ache once more. For you feel sure now, from Mr. Holmes’s absence, that he’s not going to talk to you about what had taken place earlier. Feel sure now that he’s in denial of his feelings for you. 

 

*

 

In his study Mycroft’s heart aches too. For he knows that he’s being rather cowardly by hiding in here, rather than choosing to face you in the living room. But at the same time dinner had been strained enough, and not only that but he’d felt as if he just wanted to shut himself away and think about it all properly. Think about the fact that he’s been foolish enough to let you into his heart when he doesn't even know if you've let him into yours, and more than that, for he suspects that even if you don’t feel the same way, you at least feel warmer than you should towards him considering the position you hold, think about how foolish he is to let you into his heart when he knows full well that nothing can ever happen between you. Not only with society poking its nose in all the time, but also with the possible detriment it could have to his career. The career that he’s worked so hard for and the career that he’ll be damned if he fails and lets little irritants like Ives get the last laugh now. Then, he suddenly wonders if he should dismiss you. Dismiss you and just get someone else. For at least that would partially solve the problem. But even if he dismissed you he knows that it doesn't automatically mean that the gossip would stop. In fact it might make things look even more suspicious, to Ives anyway. Can he really let you stay though? Let you stay when he knows that he’ll have to look at you each day and feel this ache inside him that can never be fulfilled? 

 

Yet in the end of course he decides to let you stay, for no matter how much pain he might have to go through because of it he cannot face sending you away in such a harsh way, cannot face the hurt look that would surely be upon your face if he did, and cannot face the smug yet rather disgusted look that he’d surely get from Sherlock. Not to mention Mummy’s questions about why, when he’d been so charitable by educating you, he’d suddenly decided that you weren't fit for purpose now. Of course though, even more than any of this, he knows that he lets you stay because he simply cannot face letting you go. Letting you walk out of his life and only facing hearing what you’re up to now and again… 

 

*

 

The next night Mr. Holmes joins you in the living room as is usual, and you feel that fluttering hope begin to wreak its havoc inside you again. For perhaps now that he’s had more time to think he won’t be in denial any more. 

 

But, aside from a little conversation of the most polite kind, he doesn't talk to you at all. He just sits there and reads his newspaper. 

 

*

 

The same thing continues to happen over the next few nights, and you begin to think that perhaps, even though you feel it would be most improper of you to do so, you should say something or try to provoke some sort of emotional reaction out of him. For perhaps that’s the only way that things will be able to move forwards. 

 

You think about it all as you lay in your bed that night, and as you do for some reason or another you end up recalling the telegram you’d received from your mother that day, informing you that you’d be meeting another suitor-this time a Mr. Charles Francis-the Monday after next.

 

Then, it occurs to you that, that’s perhaps the action you've been looking for. For perhaps if you were to try hard and make a particular effort with Mr. Francis, and then sing his praises to Mr. Holmes upon your return, it might encourage Mr. Holmes to not try and hide his feelings from you any longer.

 

*

 

Upon your return from your outing with Mr. Francis though you can’t face going to the living room, so you just go upstairs to your room instead. For as you’d sat opposite Mr. Francis, whilst you both ate and laughed pleasantly together, it had suddenly occurred to you what a big mistake you’d made. Suddenly occurred to you that by making such an effort with Mr. Francis, rather than setting you on a path closer to Mr. Holmes it was just setting you on an altogether more different one. Yet by the time you’d felt the sudden hollowness of such a realization, it had been too late to reverse the damage that you’d already done. Too late to reverse the warmth that you could tell Francis was already beginning to feel for you, and not only that but Mr. Francis had come across as being a genuinely charming man himself, and despite not feeling attracted to him you hadn't wanted to hurt him. 

 

Now though you can’t help but cry and feel annoyed that through trying to make things better you've only made them ten times worse. 

 

* 

 

Part of Mycroft, in spite of himself, had rather been hoping that on your return from your outing with Francis, you would have come into the living room laughing, and that, that would have served to break the final bit of awkwardness that had been between you ever since the day of the dance. For although of course he’d known that if such a thing happened he’d still have to be careful to ensure that nothing as foolish took place again, he’d hated how neither of you had seemed able to relax around each other since that day, and he’d just wanted things to become comfortable again. Not to mention that he’d desperately missed such a feeling existing between you. 

 

But you don’t return laughing. Instead, all he hears is relative silence from you as you come inside the house, clicking the front door shut behind you, before he hears you make your way upstairs. So, feeling curious about such a thing he goes out of the living room and peers up the stairs. Still he can’t hear anything from you, and he hesitates now. For should he go up or will you think less of him if he does? Think that he’s interfering? But what if Francis has done something to upset you? What if he’s hurt you? So, knowing that he can’t leave you alone now, for his own piece of mind as much as anything else, he creeps upstairs. 

 

Once he’s outside your bedroom door he just stops and listens for a moment, but still there’s nothing but silence. “F/N?” he calls, “I just wanted to check that you were all right?” 

 

A creaking noise comes at last, and Mycroft imagines that you might be rolling over on your bed. “Oh, oh yes I'm fine thank you, and yourself?” he hears you ask. 

 

Yet still he doesn't feel convinced by your loud and rather wavering tone that you really are such a thing. “Um, yes,” he replies shortly in response to your question about himself, before he goes on, “Did everything go all right tonight?” 

 

There’s another pause, and Mycroft can’t know that you’re deciding whether or not to stick to your initial plan or not. “Oh, oh yes, Mr. Francis was such a nice man, and very kind to me, we've even arranged to meet again soon,” you say, and Mycroft feels a lump of a peculiar emotion that he’s never felt before rise in his throat, so he swallows it back down. 

 

Then he forces himself to say, “Oh, oh good, I am happy for you,” and though he’d wanted it to come out in a warm and honest fashion it just comes out rather weakly and hollowly instead, and he knows that he has to get back downstairs as quickly as possible, before he falls apart completely. “Goodnight,” he says. 

 

“Goodnight,” comes your soft voice a moment later, silent tears streaming down your face at the word, because in that moment it feels, what with the disastrous plan that you’d carried out tonight, that you’re not saying, ‘Goodnight,’ but, _‘Goodbye.’_

 

*

 

Mycroft, now making his way across the living room floor towards the drinks cabinet, feels pain too. In fact he feels like his heart is splintering, because somehow you've got happy feelings of romance blossoming inside you when all he’s got is this. This situation where he can’t confess his feelings to you and try to make things better for himself, not only because of society and his work, but now, because, for the first time, it’s most clear to him how your futures are going to be, and that even if you do somehow harbour feelings for him, you at the very least have accepted your place in society. Accepted that you can never be together, and you, choosing to accept this Mr. Francis into your heart tonight, as you seem to have done, couldn't show such a thing any more clearly. 

 

The fact that you've chosen Francis over him, instead of making him rejoice because even if you had chosen him nothing truly meaningful could have ever come of it anyway, causes a pain so great inside him. In fact he’s never felt such pain in all his life, and as he sits down, squeezing his glass with tight fingers, tears of anguish begin to trickle down his face. A couple even slide down into the amber liquid of his drink, and for the first time in years, even though he knows it's completely irrational for him to do so, he begins to sob. For suddenly what he has-his wealth, career, the fact that he’s sitting in a warm living room in a house that a lot of people, the London poor regardless, would die for-isn't enough. You’re the only one that he wants, he’s realized that so completely tonight, and now he’ll never be able to have you, and for a moment he wishes that he _had_ been able to kiss you that day, for even though things wouldn't have been any different then, at least he would have known what it felt like to press his lips against yours. At least he would have had that one fleeting memory to keep hold of, and society, nor Francis wouldn't have been able to deny him that…

 

*

 

From that point on it’s as if Mycroft and you are living separate lives alongside each other, like two ghosts floating about in the same house. 

 

Mycroft’s heart breaks a bit more whenever you leave the house to go off with Francis, whilst yours crumbles to dust inside you when he remains silent as each day passes and nothing changes. For once more, in spite of yourself, you’d been hoping that it _would_ change, and that the more you went out with Francis the more it would make Mr. Holmes confess his feelings for you. But of course it hadn't. Instead all it had done was make your respective paths get all the more separated. 

 

*

 

 _Six Weeks Later…_

 

You don’t know whether you’re sweating because you’re nervous or because the house is sweltering, but either way, despite the fact that you can feel the dampness of it on your face and you know that you must look a bit of a state right now, you force yourself to raise a hand and knock on Mr. Holmes’s study door. 

 

“Come in,” he says a moment later, and you do so. He’s sitting behind his desk and his brow furrows a little at the sight of you as you edge yourself nervously into the room. “Ah, F/N,” he says, “What can I do for you?” and you wish that he wouldn't ask it like that. Wish that he wouldn't be so formal with you. Wish that you could go back to your laughter with each other, but such things seem to be of a time long since past. 

 

You have little choice therefore but to go along with what you’d intended. “I was wondering, if you had a moment, whether I could talk to you?” you ask, whilst your heart beats nine to the dozen. 

 

“Certainly,” he says, in a manner that’s _again_ too formal for your liking, before he gestures with his hand to the seat that’s in front of his desk. 

 

You sit down on it and your hands fidget together. Then you say, “It’s well”- before you break off again. “I don’t, well, I don’t know any other way to say this, so I'm just going to say it,” you announce, squaring your shoulders a little. “Charles Francis asked me to marry him last night.” 

 

The reaction you get is a lot milder than you’d like. For instead of a shocked face followed by a sudden declaration of love like the silly bit of hope inside you had made you wish for, you simply get a flickering of something across Mycroft’s eyes, before he looks down at the table and nods as if he’s considering the matter. “Congratulations,” he says, when he looks up at you again, and he sounds all rather cold and disinterested really, as if he’d much rather just get back to the work that he’d been doing, before you’d interrupted him. The thought makes your heart tumble. For you can’t know that his quiet and even response to your words is all just a façade. Can’t know that even though he’d been half-expecting such a thing to happen for a while his heart is cracking in a way that it won’t ever recover from. 

 

So, because you can’t know all those things you feel a pressure to speak some more. Feel a pressure to say, “Although at some point I will have to leave you and serve what will then be my husband”-

 

“Quite right,” Mycroft says. 

 

“Yes,” you say in a rather awkward, flustered fashion, “I wanted to let you know that of course it’s up to you fully to decide how long you wish me to work for. I know that it will probably be best if I work for a few months more at least, to give you a chance to find someone else,” and Mycroft finds himself smiling at the irony of those words, whilst he looks at his desk. 

 

“Oh,” he says, peeking up to look at you again, “I wouldn't want to be accused of standing in the way of true love,” and you want to yell for a moment that it really couldn't be anything more unlike true love and that you love him and ask him why on earth he can’t see that. But the expression on his face is so even and so devoid of all emotion that it makes you just sit there silently and feel all the more hopeless because of it. 

 

Yet finally you can do so for no longer, so, seeing quite clearly that he’s not going to tell you what you want him to, you tell him what you need to instead, “Oh no Sir, you wouldn't be. Charles and I discussed what would be sensible last night, and since Charles is doing some renovations to the property that we’ll be living in once we’re married we quite thought that it was perhaps best for us to have a long engagement.” You leave out, of course, your own relief that you’d felt at such knowledge. Then you add, “No doubt my mother will be disappointed by that fact,” which makes Mycroft smile a little in spite of himself. 

 

Then, once the light has faded inside him once more, he asks, “How long do you think that will take?” 

 

“Until the end of November Sir, most probably.” 

 

“In that case I shall have you working for me until then,” Mycroft concludes, as if that’s really the end of the matter and there’s nothing more to discuss, and his fingers rifle through some papers on his desk now, whilst his head bends down. 

 

Seeing that you’re being dismissed, you rise slowly to your feet and make your way to the door. You find yourself looking back at him once you’re there, and something, perhaps it’s just the urge you feel in that moment to be completely honest with him, or perhaps it’s the way that he looks suddenly vulnerable with his fringe flopping over his forehead, but something makes you say, “The property’s in Ireland Sir,” and you don’t have to say anything more, for Mr. Holmes looks up at you and you can tell by the way he does so that he understands everything. That he understands that after November you’ll probably never see each other again. So, after one last exchanged nod you leave him once more, even though your heart sinks as much as his does when you do so. 

 

Mycroft finds that he can get little work done after that, and he just goes to stare out of the study’s windows instead, trying to measure the distance between here and Ireland. Trying not to cry or yell out in frustration at it all. He still turns to give a good kick to his desk though. But he instantly regrets it when it just adds to his pain. 

 

*

 

You take so long to join him in the living room that night that he begins to think that you’re not joining him. So it’s a surprise to him when he looks up from where he’s sitting to see that you’re standing by the entranceway, clutching a book in your hand.

 

He can’t know, as he does, that the reason that you've taken so long is because there were two voices arguing in your head. One insisting that you should be proper and try to cut down the amount of time you spend with him out of loyalty to Francis. Whilst another, that silly one of hope again, insists that there’s still time for Mr. Holmes to confess his feelings to you, and that in any case, what with you leaving, you should try and make the most out of the time you've got left with him. 

 

You smile a little awkwardly at him as soon as your eyes meet, before you go across to join him, and he stands out of respect for you. 

 

There’s a change between you again now, and although you've mostly sat with each other in this room ever since you started working for him, it feels oddly like you’re starting again in some ways. Perhaps you are, for a firm line that wasn't so definite before has been drawn between you now, and as Mycroft catches sight of the ring that adorns your finger, he’s reminded only too clearly of it. Reminded only too clearly of the fact that you’re not destined to be with him, but rather someone else. _Francis._

 

His eyes keep sliding down to the ring even when you both sit down, and when he sees that you’re watching his gaze carefully, and he can’t know that, that hope is thrumming in your throat as you do so, he nods, before he says, “You weren't wearing it earlier when you came to the study?” He cringes a little as soon as he’s said it though, for he’d fully intended to just say that it was nice or something, but those words had come tumbling out instead. 

 

You don’t look too offended by his remark, on the contrary you look as if you’re fighting back a bit of a smile as you respond, “No,” and it’s only when you add, “I thought it would be obvious what I’d come to talk to you about if I did, for I knew that you’d spot it at once Sir,” that he realizes what he thinks is really the reason behind your amusement. For he can’t know that actually you’re beginning to feel happier about the slight progress he’s beginning to show. Can’t know that you’re beginning to wonder if tonight will be the night when his feelings come hurtling out of him at last. 

 

He just lets out a sigh in the next moment though, and both feeling a little confused by it and wanting to encourage the words, which you know are closer to coming out of his mouth than they have ever been, you ask, “Is everything all right Sir?” 

 

“Yes,” he says rather abruptly in the next moment without looking at you, and then he clears his throat, before he picks up the newspaper that’s beside him on the side table and begins to read. 

 

You can’t help but watch him for a moment as he does, and you wonder as you do why he won’t just come out with the words you so desperately want him to. Then you clear your own throat, before you turn to your book. 

 

Mycroft can sense you still looking up at him every now and again though, and when he feels such a thing happening once more he looks over the top of his newspaper so that he can meet your gaze. You smile at him a little encouragingly and shift your position, but still you maintain that act of silence, whilst you look at him. As Mycroft takes you in it seems to him that you’re almost waiting for him to say something, and he looks down now, whilst he considers what that something might be. The same foolish hope that you might really be in love with him after all flutters through him for a moment. Perhaps you’re even waiting for _him_ to be the one to confess his feelings. But he catches sight of your ring in the firelight again, and he makes a sound of irritation at how ridiculous he is. For of _course_ it’s not that. You’re probably just wanting to discuss if you can get more money out of him, before you leave, so that you have even more to start off your new life in Ireland with. He can’t help but think that Francis has probably put you up to such a thing, and he just feels even more irritated. 

 

“Did you wish to ask me something Miss L/N?” he asks, reverting to his usual cold self now, and you frown a little at the use of your surname. 

 

“No”- you begin. 

 

“So your husband to be didn't suggest trying to get more money out of me before you leave this position?” he interrupts, and you’re reminded of one of the first things he’d told you now, about him knowing every trick in the book. 

 

“N-No, he didn't,” you stammer out, pushing back in your chair now and feeling a little scared, for he looks _so_ angry-

 

“Good,” Mycroft huffs, “Because I've been generous enough with you already.”

 

“I know,” you say, without even looking at him.

 

It’s those two words that make Mycroft’s anger cool and make him realize what a pig-headed fool he’s being. He huffs out a breath and clambers to his feet. “Forgive me, I don’t know why I'm acting like this, my head has been aching of late,” he tells you as he turns his back on you now, his hands in his pockets. But you don’t say anything, for of course you _do_ know why he’s acting like this, and you wish that he’d just be honest with you instead of trying to make you feel small. He looks back at you then. “You probably wish you could leave here at once, don’t you?” he asks, with a bit of a forced smile at you now. 

 

“No Sir,” you say quietly, still barely able to look at him, whilst you feel hurt by his earlier behaviour and saddened by the whole thing. 

 

“You’re being kind,” he chuckles now, not believing your words for a moment, for why would you want to stay here with him when you could be in your own house with your own husband?

 

“Not at all Sir,” you reply, in that same quiet voice, before you duck your head. 

 

He looks at you for a moment. Then he throws himself back down into his chair and begins to read again. 

 

Neither of you say anything more for the whole night. 

 

* 

 

Autumn arrives after a disappointing summer, and the distance and sadness between you only seems to grow. It’s even there in the laughter, which is few and far in between these days, not to mention short-lived, with both of you cutting it off in an abrupt fashion every time it escapes from your mouths as if you've just sinned. 

 

*

Finally, and all too soon at the same time, November arrives, bringing with it wedding bells. 

 

The ceremony for Charles and you is a short and more intimate one than your mother would probably like, carried out on a gloomy, drizzly day that further seems to sink your spirits. For even when you’re saying your vows you wish that you were saying them to Mr. Holmes. 

 

Mycroft, of course, doesn't attend. He’d politely declined your invitation, saying that he always had a lot of work to be getting on with around that time of year. Instead he attempts to do some paperwork in his study, whilst the service is being carried out. He soon finds that he can’t concentrate however, and he ends up staring out of the window for the longest of times, before he finally gives up on the idea of work, stands and fetches himself a drink. Then he takes it to the library and drinks it as he stares out of the long windows onto the driveway. 

 

He gets lost in his thought once more, and for a moment, just after he’s drained his glass and he’s making to turn away, he thinks that he sees a vision of you in your wedding dress at the bottom of the driveway. But, as usual these days, it’s just in his mind. 

 

*

 

There is one thing that could be considered as good news though. For the final touches to Francis’s house are taking slightly longer than expected, and so you now won’t be leaving him until the fifth of December. 

 

In the circumstances, Mycroft, though glad of course to have your presence for a smidgen longer had felt, when he’d heard of the few extra days that you were to be having with him, like they would only be prolonging the agony. For he’s felt as if he’s been holding his breath and like he hasn't been able to properly relax ever since you’d first announced that you’d be leaving him. Not to mention that he’s felt pain every time he’s looked at you. 

 

But now, now that it’s the fifth of December and he comes out of all his memories, he thinks that he would do anything to have them. Do anything to still have a few days left. A few days of you still being in this house with him. Do anything not to have to say goodbye. 

 

*

 

You come out of all the memories with a sigh and with tears silently streaming down your face. For this is it, after everything, the day you've wanted to avoid has come, and you finally have to say goodbye to Mr. Holmes. 

 

You sigh again. Then, unable to put it off for any longer, you get up, barely being able to look at the wedding ring on your finger as you do so. 

 

You do all of your usual morning chores, before you set about preparing the table for breakfast for the last time.

 

You decide to make a cooked breakfast, which is looked on as a treat in this house, and you've just finished setting the final piece down, which is the jug of orange juice, when Mr. Holmes enters. 

 

You catch sight of each other immediately; whilst your body’s half-turned towards the table, and a thousand memories seem to float in the air like dust between you as you both take each other in. Mycroft notices that you’re wearing your usual grey dress despite the fact that you’ll be leaving that day, whilst you notice that he looks his usual pristine self, wearing a white shirt, light blue neck tie, and dark waistcoat and trousers. A silver chain of a pocket watch is also visible. Then, both of your lips curve upwards momentarily in a tight smile, before your faces become rather serious once more. 

 

“Good morning Sir.” 

 

“Good morning,” Mycroft says, managing to force another brief smile onto his face despite the fact that his heart is heavy, whilst he looks at you on his way across to the table. 

 

He sits down and you pour him some orange juice, before you make to move away. 

 

But Mycroft, who’d kept his head down consideringly, whilst you’d been pouring the orange juice, only saying a mumbled word of thanks, raises it now and says, “Sit with me would you?” whilst his hands tense upon his cutlery, and though he feels a little annoyed with himself for showing this sign of weakness he can’t deny himself it all the same. Not when it’s his last. His last chance to share such moments of seeming insignificance with you. 

 

You sit down quietly, feeling a little surprised by his request but glad for it all the same, and Mycroft lets go of his cutlery as you do so. 

 

Then, when your eyes come to slowly meet each other’s again, Mycroft attempts another smile, whilst he says, “So here we are then,” with a little wave of his hands. 

 

“Here we are,” you agree, forcing a smile onto your face. Then, as silence descends between you, Mycroft awkwardly looks down, before he makes a start on his breakfast. 

 

You watch him eat for a moment. 

 

It’s not long, before he looks up again and asks, “What time is your carriage due?” 

 

“Eleven Sir,” you reply, despite the fact that he’d asked the same thing the previous night and across several nights during the past week. 

 

Mycroft nods. Then there’s another moment of silence, before he informs you, “I have some correspondence to deal with in the study, but I’d be appreciative if you were to fetch me just before you leave.”

 

“I won’t leave without saying goodbye Sir,” you promise. 

 

“Good,” he nods, before he dislodges a piece of scrambled egg, which has got stuck in his teeth with his tongue. 

 

Things descend into silence once more. 

 

*

 

True to your word, at ten minutes to eleven, you make your way past where your small case and hotboxes are waiting on the floor in the entrance hall. Then you go across to the study, before you knock at its door. 

 

Mr. Holmes opens it just a moment later, and you suddenly wonder if he’s been waiting for you just behind the door. 

 

But the thought leaves your mind a moment later when he says, “Ah, of course.” Then he gestures for you to lead the way back to the entrance hall. 

 

You do so, coming to a stop in the middle of it, next to your things. 

 

There you turn to each other and take each other in for the last time. Mycroft takes in your determined looking e/c eyes as if you’re trying to keep your emotions in check. He feels momentarily flattered that part of you might genuinely be feeling sad to leave right now, despite the excitement that you no doubt feel about being able to move in with your husband. You meanwhile take in his studious blue eyes, whilst you wonder if you’ll be able to remember the exact shade of them in the months to come. You hope you will. 

 

“Onto your next adventure,” Mycroft acknowledges gently. 

 

“Yes Sir,” you nod, before you bite at your lip uncertainly, not for the first time that morning. 

 

Then Mycroft bits at his own lip and shifts his weight from one foot to the other, before he states, “I-I wanted to thank you, for all your hard work, and to wish you well for the future,” and though they’re not the parting words that you’d secretly been hoping for, you nod and force a smile onto your face. 

 

He looks as if he’s waiting for more of a reaction from you though, so in the end you say, “Thank you Sir, that means a lot.” Then you swallow, before you go on more honestly, “I-I wanted to thank you too, for your hospitality and for, well, for helping to educate me Sir, I've learnt such a lot from you,” and Mycroft’s heart pangs with pain. 

 

“I from you also,” he says, returning the compliment, and for the next moment his mouth continues to move but no further words come out. For suddenly he feels like he should be saying a whole lot more to you. Saying the truth even though he knows that it’s far too late and he doesn't know how. _“I-I”-_ he attempts. 

 

He breaks off just a moment later, for the clatter of hooves comes upon the gravel, and your heads both turn towards it, before Mycroft’s mouth falters between being open and shut when you come to look at each other again. 

 

“Yes Sir?” you say, looking at him more urgently now as you silently plead him to finally come out with what you've been hoping for. 

 

But he merely swallows, before he draws himself up, his face transforming into something cooler and evener as he does so, and your heart sinks as you realize the moment has passed. Then he clicks his heels together and says, “Good luck F/N, I will help you take your things to the carriage now,” whilst he looks at a spot above your shoulder. You, used to the disappointment by now, just nod. 

 

Then, together, you take the small amount of things out to the carriage, both of you glancing at each other a little as you do so, no doubt trying to hold onto each other’s mannerisms and appearance in your minds. 

 

Once everything’s secure and you’re inside the carriage, your hand enclosed inside of a white glove-a set of which had been a present from Charles-as it clings onto the top of the door, Mycroft stands just outside, bending his head so that he can awkwardly peer in, and the two of you just look at each other for a moment. Neither of you knowing what to say or do, your mouths just curving upwards into awkward, little smiles. 

 

The driver, a short, squat man, looks impatient to leave, and Mycroft, catching sight of such a thing, says, “Goodbye F/N.”

 

“Goodbye Mr. Holmes,” you say, letting out a little breath now, and Mycroft wishes that just for once he’d heard you call him by his Christian name. 

 

It’s too late to express such a thought now though, and his body at least knows it, for it draws him away from the carriage automatically. Then the driver gives a great shout to the horses and shakes at their fastenings, before both you and the carriage are off, curving halfway around the fountain and clattering down the driveway. 

 

As he sees you getting further and further away from him suddenly it’s as if all the emotion he’s been feeling and trying to lock away for months comes to the forefront, and he’s jogging, no running, down the driveway. 

 

He’s already too late though, for you’re already too far away from him. Whilst by the time the carriage makes it to the gates, before it turns the corner neither you nor the driver have noticed him, and not even his hoarse yelling of your name has done him any good. 

 

By the time he gets to the gates himself the carriage is already out of sight, and he’s just left there, out of breath and with his fringe flopping over his forehead as he stares towards the direction it would have gone. 

 

“I love you,” he says, finally being able to get out the words that he’s been wanting to. But you’re not there to hear him. No one is. 

 

*

 

_One Year Later_

 

You've been entering his dreams lately. It’s always the same one. Always opening with him sitting in his usual chair by the fire in the living room, his head resting against the back of it, whilst he ponders about things and misses you. Then you enter. But it’s weird because you’d think that considering he’s missing you he’d jump up and look both shocked and excited when you walk into the room. Instead it’s more like he’d just been missing you, whilst you were out or something. For though he can feel his face relaxing as soon as he sees you he still stays where he is. Things have definitely changed between the pair of you though, and for the better too, for you always kiss him once you come across to him. That’s his favourite part, you kissing him, and he always tries to extend it, his lips rubbing against yours for as long as they can. But always, _always_ , you pull back, before he can get enough satisfaction out of it. Then you keep your face level with his, cup his cheeks with your hands, and stare deeply into his eyes, whilst you say, “Be kind.”

 

He always wakes as soon as he starts to become both dissatisfied and fearful when you only press a gentle kiss to his forehead, before you start to pull away from him. Always wakes just as your fingers begin to slide slowly back from his cheeks, and always the same word escapes his lips as soon as he does, _“No.”_

 

All the tears, bitterness and rage that he only ever allows himself to feel first thing in the morning and last thing at night, starts to erupt from him then. For why should he be kind? Why should he listen to you when you’re probably busy enjoying your life in Ireland with your husband? Why should he listen to you when you've left him like this? When ever since you've gone it feels like all the colour’s been drained, not only out of the house but out of his life too? Which is ironic he knows considering that whenever he’d seen you, you’d mostly been wearing grey. 

 

The house is silent too, and although its been so long it’s something that he’s yet to get used to. He’s yet to get used to not waking up to the sound of your soft movements about the house. Yet to get used to not having any one to talk to at every meal. Sometimes he even opens his mouth to say something, until he remembers that you’re no longer there. Yet to get used to how achingly long the evenings now seem when there’s not even the possibility of you joining him. It’s funny, he sometimes thinks, for you were only there for a year, but it’s like you’d somehow managed to infiltrate every inch of both him and the house. 

 

He supposes though, that when it comes down to it, the silence in the house is his own fault really. For his mother had tried to send him more servants, of course she had, but each one had lasted no more than a couple of weeks. For he’d ended up yelling at all of them in an ugly fashion in the end, calling them incompetent, because there they were, doing the same jobs that you’d done, but they weren't you and they could never be you, and they would never understand that them not being so was only causing him more pain. Never understand that no matter how hard they worked, or that even if they somehow managed to do things in a better way than you had, they would never be good enough. Never be you. He’d known that if you’d been able to see him doing such things you wouldn't have approved. Known that you would have done that frown of yours, before you would have ducked your head. Shortly after his mother had given up on him and told him to find his own servant he’d started having those dreams, as if the you in his sub-conscious was confirming that you wouldn't approve of the man he’s become. Truth be told he hadn't approved of his own behaviour much in those moments either, for it had reminded him painfully of the way his father had behaved that one Christmas. Yet still he hadn't changed or tried to find himself another servant. Instead he’s just resigned himself to this new life of solitude, and both the house and garden are paying for it as much as he is. 

 

His moments of being even colder and stern, not to mention more impatient than usual, had spilled over into his work, and he’d heard Ives loudly telling someone that he’d lost the plot and that he wasn't fit to be working any more. Yet although he’d been called in front of his boss once or twice and it had been suggested to him in a kind but firm manner that he could perhaps try telling people in another way that they were incompetent, he hadn't lost his job. Not yet anyway. 

 

Only Sherlock it seems, out of everyone, knows or at least suspects the truth. Yet although Mycroft had caught his little brother looking like he might want to breach the subject during the rare occasions that they’d crossed each other’s paths, he’d soon been able to quell such a possibility with a look, and so they’d never once talked about it. 

 

*

 

Mycroft’s walking through a part of town late one cold December day, not yet quite ready to be ferried home by a horse drawn carriage to be alone with his thoughts, and appreciating the hustle and bustle of the market traders who are still trying to sell their wares, when he hears a voice say, “Penny for the poor Sir?” 

 

“No,” he says automatically, though he stops in spite of himself. But then, instead of more words being said he hears a sharp little intake of breath, and just as he’s about to move off he realizes that he knows the voice who’d just asked the question. He whirls around. 

 

He stops as soon as his eyes find you, his mouth opening in horror. For you’re sitting by the brick wall at the end of one of the rows of stalls, your knees drawn up to your chest, your hair hanging down loose, greasy and unkempt, and you’re partially gloved hand clutches onto a small collection tin, whilst you wear the most ratty clothes that he’s ever seen you in-a black shawl over your knees and one of your grey dresses, which looks a little ragged and torn. You’re almost completely unrecognisable to him, and if it wasn't for the fact that he’d memorized every detail of you and for the fact that he’d dreamt so much about you of late, then he might have doubted the very possibility. 

 

You look just as stunned to see him, looking as smart as ever in his top hat and three-piece suit, along with his black top coat, as if nothing’s changed for him since the day you’d left him. Your mouth opens, making your dry, cracked lips all the more prominent to him, whilst your e/c eyes look panicked above the grime, which smears your dusty cheeks. 

 

But all in all, though Mycroft knows quite clearly that it’s you, he doesn't know what to do. For your sudden intrusion into his life, and especially the circumstances around it, has shocked him so much that all too soon he’s turning around automatically and walking off, before either of you can say another word. 

 

Another gasp leaves your lips, this one more tearful, as you watch him go. As you watch his tall, lean figure getting lost in the crowd until all that’s left of him is a top hat bobbing quickly off into the distance. Then you begin to cry, ignoring the gazes of those who look at you along with the wheezing of the old crone who sits next to you. Instead you just allow yourself to physically get out how embarrassed and ashamed you feel that Mr. Holmes of all people had seen you in such a way. But you almost end up laughing at yourself too. For how arrogant you’d been once when you’d assumed that by becoming a servant you’d fallen the lowest you could go. How stupid you’d been to forget that there was always _this_. 

 

Yet no, you think, there’s a place lower than this still. A place called the workhouse. As you pull yourself a bit more together and swipe at your eyes with your holey-gloved hands, you know, more than ever, that you can avoid that place no more. Know with a certainty that you won’t spend another day or night on the street after this one. Know that the remaining remnants of your pride won’t let you risk any body else you know spot and recognize you. Instead you’ll do what you should have done when you’d decided that you were too embarrassed and ashamed to return home to your mother. You’ll go to the workhouse. For _that_ , you think, truly is the only place that you’re fit for now, and _that_ is what you deserve. What you deserve for that stupid plan you’d concocted all that time ago. That stupid plan of getting close to Francis in the hope of making Mr. Holmes jealous. That stupid plan that had led to all this… 

 

*

 

Mycroft can’t get the image of you out of his head as he sits by the warm fire in the living room that night. Especially of your e/c eyes and the way that they’d looked at him. But more than that he can’t get rid of the endless questions that have been swirling about in his head. For how on earth had you come to be out on the street in such a way? Why weren't you still in Ireland? Where was your husband? What on earth had happened in the time between when you’d left him and today? 

 

The more that he thinks about it though and ponders on all these questions the more that he feels ashamed of himself. For why hadn't he had the decency to stop and at the very least talk to you? Why had he just gone off and left you? Then he asks himself if he’s really become so cold that he’d even abandon the very person who he’s wanted to see all this time, and the answer that he comes to doesn't satisfy him. 

 

Enough’s enough, that’s what he’s beginning to think as he goes to bed that night, and by the time that the morning comes and he answers, “Yes,” to the dream, he knows it is. Knows that it’s about time he stopped behaving so coldly. But more than that, now that he’s been given this second chance, he knows that he’s going to tell you how he feels. For even if you don’t feel the same, at least then he’ll finally be certain, and he can still try and help you at the very least with the dire situation that’s befallen you. 

 

So, rather than making his way to work as he should and knowing what he needs to do, he makes his way back to the street that he’d found you on yesterday. 

 

The market traders are just beginning to set up their stalls, and as he goes along, desperately searching for you, he replies to a few of them with an abrupt kind of politeness when they call out to him. 

 

Finally he sees you, slumped against the wall, in more or less the same position that he’d left you in yesterday, and with the same black shawl draped across your knees, whilst your head droops down onto your shoulder as you attempt to cling onto the last few remnants of sleep. 

 

He lets out a gasp of relief as he takes you in, feeling glad that you haven’t left the spot. Then he approaches you cautiously and wrinkles his nose a little at the smell, which comes from the old woman who’s fast asleep next to you. You stir a little as he crouches down in front of you, but you’re still in the arms of Morpheus. So he tentatively reaches out so that he can pat you on the shoulder. 

 

You start violently at that, your eyes slamming open, and Mycroft jerks his hand back, his top hat toppling off his head as he does so. Then he lets out a little, ‘Ah,’ of surprise, before he makes to clutch at his chest. 

 

“Mr. Holmes Sir!” you exclaim, rubbing the sleep quickly out of your eyes, before you blink at him in astonishment. 

 

“F/N, I'm glad I found you,” he says, staring at you gently, before he asks, “I wonder if you might accompany me back home?” 

 

“Oh Sir I couldn't,” you say. 

 

“I assure you, you could,” he says, reminding you of that day in the living room when you’d danced, and your chest tightens painfully at the memory, before you smile a little awkwardly at him when he smiles at you encouragingly. 

 

Just then though, and before you can reply, the old crone who’s sleeping by you awakes, and as soon as she sees Mycroft she asks, “This one ain't bothering you is he?” 

 

“Oh no”- you begin. 

 

“I've seen all sorts you know,” she begins in a wheezing tone, “I know how a pretty young thing like you can get taken advantage of by even the most honest looking of gentleman,” she goes on, and as she fixes her gaze properly upon Mycroft now he starts a little and lets out a breath of surprise when he catches sight of the fact that one of her eyes is made out of glass. 

 

A moment later he feels you looking at him so his gaze goes back to you. Then, when he sees the almost helpless look that you've got on your face, he turns back to the old dear and says, “We’re old friends actually,” as he indicates between you and himself now. 

 

It’s stupid, but as soon as he says it you feel hope that you haven’t felt in so long begin to fill you. 

 

“That’s what they all say dearie,” the old crone says, clearly more hardened than you. 

 

Mr. Holmes begins to look worried that he’s not getting across what he wants to then, so you make to grasp the old woman’s hand with yours in an attempt to calm her. Then you tell her, “No, it’s true, we are. You probably don’t believe it, it feels almost like another lifetime to me too in fact, but”- you don’t say any more, for Mycroft places his hand gently upon where yours is over the old lady’s, and you find yourself turning your head to look at him.

 

He looks back at you, and as he does so it’s then that you get the sudden feeling that what you should have done on your return to London was not to come here on the streets, or the workhouse or even home to your family. But that you should have gone back to Mr. Holmes. Back to where you really feel your home is. For you sense that he’s ready now, and maybe he’s been so for some time… 

 

He lets go of your hand then and stands, picking up and dusting off his top hat as he does so, before he places it back on his head. Automatically you get up too, moving the shawl from your knees to around your shoulders. 

 

The old crone mumbles something, but you don’t hear it, for you’re too busy relishing in how good it feels to be standing by Mr. Holmes again. Too good in relishing how good it feels to know that things have changed yet again. 

 

He smiles at you, that encouraging one of his again, so you nod and give him a bit of a smile back, before you begin to move off together. 

 

You keep close to him as you begin to walk back through the market place, but you quickly become aware of the attention that you’re attracting, and you wager that you must look a strange sight. You with your unkempt hair, tatty shawl and dress, with bruised scraped knees, and shoes and gloves that aren't good for anything any more, and him the pristine looking gentleman. Never has the difference between you been so apparent. 

 

Mycroft notices the looks that you’re both getting too, and he waits for you to draw level with him for a moment, before he puts a protective arm around your shoulders. He’s instantly surprised by how cold you are, and the realization makes him feel even more annoyed with himself for not doing more to help you last night. 

 

You meanwhile resist his touch at first, saying a little embarrassed, “I'm filthy Sir,” but he just gives you a bit of a look, clearly telling you not to argue with him, so you relent, letting him lead you to his carriage. 

*

 

The sight of the lawns around the house, once you get back to it, nearly make you cry. For they're all overgrown and filled with weeds, and for the first time you realise that things have also changed for the worse for him too. When you look across at him automatically Mycroft just looks at you gently for a moment, before he turns his head and quietly murmurs, "Yes, my mother doesn't approve either." You _do_ begin to cry then, and by the time you step out of the carriage, Mr. Holmes helping you down from it, you feel reluctant to go inside the house and see how that might have changed too. Mycroft, however, just steers you inside. 

 

Then, once you’re in the entrance hall, and you feel relieved that aside from looking more dusty it looks much the same as its always done, he lets go of you and turns towards you. “Where’s that husband of yours?” is the first thing he asks. 

 

You’d been looking up at him, but as soon as the question’s asked you look back down again. For you know that before things can properly have a chance to get better you need to confront the past and come to terms with what you've been through. But even knowing that things will surely get better now doesn't stop the past from hurting. 

 

Mycroft gives you a moment, thinking that you’re merely trying to find the words to tell him. But then there comes the slight trembling of your shoulders, and he frowns, before when he catches sight of your tear drops beginning to fall from your eyes and catching upon the border in between one of the black and white tiles on the floor, he asks, _“F/N?”_

 

“He decided that he didn't want me Sir,” you begin, sniffing a little as you look back at him now, “N-Not when I couldn't provide him with a child,” and Mycroft pales a little, his mind instantly cursing the foul man, before he listens as you go on more bitterly, “O-Of course he didn't see fit to tell me all that until after he’d brought me back to London. As soon as we arrived Sir, he said, he said that he didn't want me no more, and that he’d done his duty by bringing me back here. Then he took the ring from me, saying that he’d already declared the marriage null. I haven’t seen him since Sir.”

 

“Why on earth didn't you go back to your family?” 

 

“I-I was too ashamed Sir,” you manage to get out, your throat feeling tickly now. Then a coughing fit attacks you. 

 

Mycroft grips your shoulders lightly to support you as the coughs make your body shudder violently. Then, once you get back under control once more, he murmurs, “Well, in that case I hope you won’t be too ashamed to come back here, for I refuse to allow you to freeze to death on the street,” with a bit of a grim smile and a serious look in his eyes. 

 

That had been exactly what you’d been hoping for, well _nearly_ exactly what you’d been hoping for. But you know that you can’t just go back to working for him if it means having the hope in your heart crumble every day. You’ll work for him again, but there has to be that change you want. Either that or he has to dismiss you completely. For you can’t just go back to all the uncertainty of before. You've been through enough. So, deciding to test the waters in the hope that it might finally make his feelings clear to you, you say, “Oh, I don’t know Sir,” only half-looking at him now, “I've probably become too much of an embarrassment to work for you.”

 

Mycroft lets go of you and sighs at that, and your heart wavers automatically. “You silly girl, I don’t mean working for me,” he mutters, and you look at him now as he runs a hand back through his hair in frustration, before you listen as he commands, “Wait there.”

 

You do so, feeling apprehensive all the while. For what does him saying that and then leaving you to go off in the direction of the study mean? Does it mean what you hope it will? That he’s merely having one last moment to himself, one last moment of trying to summon his courage up, before he declares his love for you? But then your eyes catch sight of all the grime and filth that you've brought into the entrance hall, and you feel foolish. For what man would confess their love to you when you've not only ruined the cleanliness of their home, but when you look such a state? Your heart sinks at that. Whilst when Mr. Holmes returns just a few moments later, carrying a slip of white paper, you’re more or less resigned to the fact that you’re about to have what’s left of your heart broken again. About to have all your hope diminished once more. 

 

“Now,” he says, clearly having little idea of where your thoughts have gone down as he stops in front of you once more, “These words might be a little complicated and difficult for you to understand, so you’re welcome to try and sound them out if you want to.” 

 

You find it a bit of an odd time for him to be giving you an English lesson, but in the end you just nod, feeling like you just want to get whatever it is over with so that you can nurse your tattered self back together. 

 

He slowly hands the piece of paper to you, so you take it from him, before you hold it in between both of your hands. 

 

A sharp breath leaves you as you look down and read it. For on it he’s written: _I love you. Will you marry me?_ Tears bubble up in your eyes and your hands begin to shake as you look up at him again, for you can hardly believe it, and part of you feels sure that you must still be asleep on the streets, dreaming of something better. 

 

He’s looking down at you with an air of breathless expectancy about him, and his mouth is slightly open as the corner of his lip twitches up into a bit of a hesitant smile when you look up at him. “I realized I’d fallen in love with you when we danced together that day”-

 

“Then why did you tell that man that I was just a servant to you? I loved you Sir, and I thought, on that day, that you might actually feel the same. But then I heard you say that, and I felt so hurt by it. But then, then I thought no, that can’t be true, I knew what I’d felt with you in the living room that day, I knew I hadn't exaggerated it. Knew I hadn't just made it up, and I thought sure enough that Mr. Holmes will tell me once he's thought on the matter some more, tell me and prove that I wasn't wrong. But you never did Sir, and it broke my heart you not telling me,” you interrupt, letting the paper drop down to the dirty floor now as tears begin to stream down your face. 

 

“I-I didn't mean it when I said that to Ives, I was upset, confused, I’d never felt that way before and I’d only just realized, a-and it scared me,” he stammers out, his face paling. “Then I realized that no matter how much I wanted to tell you I couldn't, because of society and the effect it might have on my work, and…and _why_ did you agree to marry Francis if you loved me and suspected that I loved you in return?” he asks. 

 

You swallow hard a couple of times. “I spent two weeks waiting, no hoping, that you might find the courage to tell me how you felt Sir. Two weeks feeling apprehensive every time you opened your mouth”-and Mycroft feels ashamed of himself now, for there he was worrying about Francis hurting you, and though he has done of course, it’s now clear to him that its been _him_ whose served to hurt you most of all-“I couldn't take it no more Sir. It was clear to me that you weren't going to tell me yourself unless I did something. So, hoping that it would get some sort of reaction out of you Sir, when I first went out with Mr. Francis, I decided to make more of an effort if he was nice enough”-

 

“You were trying to make me jealous”- Mycroft realizes. 

 

“Trying to Sir,” you confess with a bit of a rueful smile. “But I didn't get very far. I still hoped though Sir, I never stopped hoping.” 

 

“It broke my heart to know you’d taken to Francis, I thought then that even if you _did_ feel something for me it wasn't as strong as what you felt for him…” Mycroft confesses, his throat tight with emotion.

 

You both share a bit of a smile with each other, both of you feeling a little relieved to be able to air such things at last, before you question, “I have to ask, what’s changed now Sir?” Then, when he gives you a bit of a puzzled look, you carry on, “Forgive me Sir, but society’s still the same as far as I'm aware, in the fact that they’d never accept a relationship between a gentleman and a servant”-

 

“As far as I was aware you’re not a servant any more Miss L/N,” Mycroft interrupts you lightly, before, and when he can see that you’re about to interrupt and about to announce that, _no_ , you’re even less than that now, he goes on in a more gentle tone, “As far as I was aware I was asking you to become my wife, and with both our families steadily going up in the world I see no reason why society should object to our union any longer,” and you feel that hope beginning to burn steadily within you again now. “Besides,” Mycroft goes on more briskly, “If they do I find that I no longer care about such a thing,” and then, unable to help it any more, he swoops down so that he can press his lips against yours. 

 

His hand clutches one of your shoulders as he does so, whilst his other goes down to your waist. 

 

You let out a bit of a gasp against his lips, before slowly, as his begin to move more insistently against yours you begin to respond. 

 

He makes a sound of encouragement as you do so, and the hand that’s on your waist goes down to brush lightly against the side of your gloved one, before he tangles his fingers with yours as he slowly pulls away from you. 

 

“Mr. Holmes Sir!” you gasp a little breathlessly with a distinct blush on your face, and Mycroft can’t help but feel pleased by your reaction. 

 

“Call me Mycroft,” he tells you with a bit of a smile just a moment later, as he brushes a strand of your hair back from your face with his free hand. 

 

Then he begins to lean down for another kiss but-

 

“What about your work Sir? If they were to disapprove”-

 

“They won’t be able to let me go,” he reassures you as he leans back, “No matter what they might think about my personal life, I'm _far_ too valuable to them,” and he feels such a thing with a certainty now. He just wishes that he'd been able to see it all so clearly when Ives had first put the point in his head, and that it hadn't taken him all this time to do so. 

 

You let out a little breath now, looking down as your head spins from it all. But then, “Mr. Holmes,” you begin, as you look back up at him, for although hearing him say such things has thrilled you, you don’t want his decision to be a short-lived rash one. Don’t want this to just be a temporary release, before your hope gets vanquished again. 

 

“Mycroft,” he reminds you, before he leans down and nips at your lips gently with his teeth now, and you moan out a little at the sensation.

 

 _“Mycroft,”_ you breathe, knowing in that moment, as he draws slightly away from you, that this isn't a temporary release after all, and that somehow this is _real_. Wonderfully, gloriously, miraculously real. Then you move one hand around to the back of his head to support him, whilst your eyes stare at him in wonder. You both smile at each other for a moment, and then you allow him to claim your lips with his once more.


End file.
